Set your grid before you start placing anything. even if you're going to get loose. It gives you something solid to break away from deliberately.

Place broken-up type along a loose diagonal so the eye moves through them in the order you want. Reading from left to right, even if loosley.

Strip the image's original grain so when you add an Overlayers texture on top, every element gets the same noise rather than competing ones.

Make the mask crisp and exact first, then use the Feather slider in Properties to soften it after. Keeps it adjustable rather than baked in with a soft brush.

Window > Arrange > New Window gives you a live second view at a different zoom, so you can tweak details without losing sight of the full composition.