Christmas gift

[Roxy Clark]

Hi Damien, 

Hope you are well. My (only lol) past client got in touch asking if we could do something as a Christmas gift/something festive for her mum, as one of her old dogs passed recently. So I was thinking of doing this for her. This is a very very rough sketch (to see if she likes the idea). 
This is the only usable picture of her younger self that I have from 2019. I have it in DNG and edited (ugly I know!!!!) Tiff file. I  deleted all my raws from that shoot (I had 1500 images, as it was a 9 dog shoot and I couldn't bring myself to go through them one by one all over again).

For now I completely desaturated greens and yellows and used AI to remove some grass but how do I do a nice believable 'cut out' .. how do I deal with all that hair? Do you have any other tips for me for a nice blending?

The lady said she likes the idea but would like the dog stand out more. Would I tone the room down? Bring the light to the dog? Many thanks!

[Roxy Clark]

She loved this darker (room/window)

version, soI think this is what we are working towards. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Roxy Clark