[Nullifidian]

I'll reply to a few more points where I take it it isn't that clear to you.

Originally Posted by Spenner

The thing which threw me off about the hands was the fact that the greyness did not at all mix with some of the skin tone values underneath, when there is at least some general warmth to the scene that would have at least brought it to more of a cool tone (comparatively to the skin), and not right at the stark grey. My eyes could be fooling me though colourblindness wise.

As I said it's very contextual and hardly worth arguing about. The grey sky and green/dark surroundings can easily make a shadow grey on a reddish surface. The only shadows worth arguing about are the badly burned shadows and the ones caused by inconsistent lighting.

Originally Posted by Spenner

The part that bothers me though is the fact that there's no other indication of that same type of lighting which can crease highlights/shadows like the pants. The scene is just that of a softer atmosphere diffused with it's lighting.

Materials!
Different materials give off different reflections. If it's a kind of fuzzy material, it makes sense that the highlight is brighter than in other surroundings because light gets captured and reflected in all kinds of directions in a fuzzy material. See spoiler:

Originally Posted by Spenner

I'm aware of that effect, and the part that singles it out for me is the fact that they are all identical, regardless of the fact that the rest of the surrounding area may be in shadow. I'm not saying the ridge has to be in shadow, but it should reflect more than just the solid colour to have an element of realism.

In this scenario it makes sense if it only reflects a solid color of the sky because the rest is too dark to be reflected in the cast shadow of his face. There's also the fact that the refraction of this curve that's created by the water focuses the light of the sky into a dense stripe so even if anything else was reflected, it's condensed into a dense line.

Originally Posted by Spenner

You've misunderstood what I meant by blending, and I probably didn't make that obvious-- it was this stuff:

No I know what you meant by blending of the bokeh and gaussian blur, but you're giving him flack for that blending when it's obvious the entire photo is an edit due to the obvious head in the shallow pool of water. The blur seems like a non-issue compared to the head in the pool of water.

Originally Posted by Spenner

The fire is not what I'm proposing has been composited in, it's the body. The smoke is totally fine, it's got that texture like you mentioned because of sharpening, and because of the clarity function in camera raw.

I know it wasn't the fire that you were proposing, but the entire figure (from the head that's on fire (and how the fire blends into the environment in a natural way) to the bottom of his body) seems to be consistent with reality so the only logical conclusion for the artefacts is a sharpening of the edges to make his body pop out more, not a pasting in of the body.

Originally Posted by Spenner

You're going to need to elaborate though, because I don't see a shadow here:

This is the shadowline highlighted in red

Originally Posted by Spenner

Also the rope comparison was merely to say that since there's clearly some shadow happening in the environment (I don't think necessarily the material of the rope is cause alone for it to have a shadow, it's because of lighting; there is fire right above it which is likely the cause of that shadow, but there's is just nothing coming off of that fabric and onto the body).

The directions of shadow and lighting add up though. The rope is in a more spherical shape so that alone accounts for why there's a bigger shadow range than the body because a body isn't as spherical. The material of the rope is a lot more reflective giving it a golden appearance as opposed to the body which has consistent matte-ish skin reflections and the value of a rope is darker than his light skin type to begin with making his body lighter overall and the highlights on the rope more apparent.