so all it would really need is some cleanup work from the upscaling? (btw original pic is posted on my profile)

I mean, it that’s incredible. If you hadn’t said anything I’d of scrolled on by and accepted it as real. On quick closer inspection it starts to raise some suspicion, especially the beard and then the other hair for me.

Friendly reminder that this is /r/photocritique and all **top level** comments should attempt to **critique** the image. Our goal is to make this subreddit a place people can receive genuine, in depth, and helpful critique on their images. We hope to avoid becoming yet another place on the internet just to get likes/upvotes and compliments. While likes/upvotes and compliments are nice, they do not further the goal of helping people improve their photography.

Please see the following links for our subreddit rules and some guidelines on leaving a good critique. If you have time, please stop by the new queue as well and leave critique for images that may not be as popular or have not received enough attention. Keep in mind that simply choosing to comment just on the images you like defeats the purpose of the subreddit.

Useful Links:

* [Full Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/rules)
* [Leaving a Critique](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/critique)
* [New Queue

If you zoom to maximum you gain an impression of horizontal and vertical lines in the hair, beard, etc., which if you are looking for markers of forgery, would be suspicious. The few beard hairs that are exactly vertical in particular. The forehead lacking detail again raises flags (but I see not that much detail in the original due to the lighting).

But nice job - have to look hard to spot issues, and a quick glance doesn't register as false.

98% of this photo is completely made up, I'm just curious to see if you guys can figure out what's fake and tell me how to improve on it more next time. pretty much just an experiment.

The only thing that looks fake on first sight is the beard.  
The colors don't make any sense and zooming it it doesn't look right. The subject also has a bit of a smirk but the beard isn't shifted in the way it would with the upper lip muscles engaged.  
On further inspection the hair looks fake as well. I assume the blond is fake but looking at it, it's the dark hair underneath that looks patched up.  
The bridge of the shades also doesn't make sense. The upper bar looks pressed into the nose while the lower bar doesn't. That doesn't really make sense.  


Having said that, I probably would not have realised anything was fake, had you not pointed it out and made me look specifically for these kind of errors.

just curious if you guys can tell what's fake (it has been upscaled btw)