The original idea was based on the expression "head in the clouds", meaning absent minded or daydreaming. Hence the slightly surreal portrait with two moons, walking on clouds, and ridiculously long shadow. I was going to put a giant version of my face poking above the clouds (for the literal interpretation of head in the clouds), but decided against it because the images I had were not the best quality and slightly grainy when used directly. Also hair is annoying and when the subject is downscaled it is harder to notice the little imperfections.

Some issues that I do not like about the image is the lighting and pose of the subject are not ideal. The lighting on the subject's face does not match the overall lighting of the scene, and the perspective is slightly off. Other than that I would have liked to do more in the upper left corner of the image, since there is a large empty space there could be filled with something.

Started off with this image because of the nice horizon line and mostly uniform lighting.

I spent quite a while on this step trying to figure out a good way to mask out the clouds in the sky. I did not want to totally remove them, and ended up using color range select to remove the blue sky. The sky was replaced with a backdrop of the milky way for a more interesting background. I also spent some time figuring out if I should move the clouds up and content aware fill the bottom, but the content aware fill did not produce the results I wanted.

Cleaned up the clouds in the sky, and started adding some small buildings in the distance, so the scene is more than a person standing on clouds. Added a moon behind some clouds because it seemed to fit well with the atmosphere of the scene. The clouds were also brightened by duplicating the layer and setting the blend mode to screen. This makes the clouds match the lighting of the moon much better.

More buildings and another moon, making sure to blend the edge of the moon into the clouds to make it look more natural. The second moon is there to reinforce the feeling that this scene is abnormal/fantastical.

Added the subject standing with their feet half obscured by the clouds. This is to make the subject look more part of the scene and to hide the awkward angle of the feet. A fake shadow is also extended to the biggest moon. The shadow is again supposed to make the subject look more integrated into the scene.

The portrait is meant to represent a violent storm, with the subject flying through the storm on an umbrella. The umbrella is their only safe haven as shown by the umbrella parting the storm to reveal a bright blue sunny sky below. This was originally inspired by the idea of a scene of half rain, half sun, with the subject standing in the middle.

Chose a good large picture of a stormy sky, at just the right perspective.

Mess around with Hue+Saturation for a more dark and oppressive feeling, and cut out the part of the storm for the umbrella.

Add the umbrella and fake rain to make the constrast between the storm and the sky under the umbrella.

Add an effect around the top of the umbrella to make it seem like the rain is bouncing off slightly.

First failed attempt at lightning.

Second attempt, much better. The flash of the lightning blending into the clouds also makes it more convincing.

Blend a different scene of a blue sunny sky into the sky underneath the umbrella, and add fake sun rays coming from the sun. Now the constrast between the storm and the umbrella is very distinct.

Add birds into the background for a little more dynamic feeling.

Add the subject into the image holding the umbrella, and fix the subject's hand so they are properly holding the umbrella.

Finally fix the lighting cast onto the subject so it looks more convincing with the sun in the background.