place into

Yes I know, this is an easy one. Could be done in your sleep. I know.
I started by showing you the finished version and if you scroll down you can see the starting image. This is a photo of yours truly just out for a sunday drive in red rock canyon in las vegas. I was there for 6 nights for photoshop world recently and wish i could have done some more exploring.
Anyway, back to photoshop.
This image screamed for a sky. I didn't look far and perhaps could have picked a better one, but this one was in the same folder. I started by selecting the sky, not with the magic wand because that is bad, but with the select - color range command. The secret to this tool is to not just click once in the area you are selecting and then playing with the fuzzy slider. Just like adding to a selection with the wand tool, you hold down the shift key and click around the area you want selected. Then if need be slide the fuzzy stick.
After i had a good selection of the sky i used the lasso tool to deselect the car and my socks as they too were white and got selected. I then hit the refine edge button and expanded my selection so i would avoid the white line on the horizon.
I opened the image i wanted to take the sky from and did a select all, and then hit edit - copy. I went back to my main image and did an edit - paste into.
This placed my paste on a new layer with a layer mask all done. With this top layer selected i could then move it around with the move tool to place it where i wanted it. It looked pretty good but i then just flattened the file and retouched the little parts of the horizon that didnt look so good.
I did a curve adjustment, bumped up the red a bit, and then smart sharpened about 40%.
I would not reccommend a mustang by the way. Stick with volkswagen.

person swap

This image is from a shoot i did last week where i had to photograph about 70 deans list students shaking hands with the dean. Well, the girl on the left was early and the dean was late and she had to go. Bring in the stand in. My co-worker/boss did a fine job but deans list students are smart and she may rather be seen with the dean.
I looked through the other photos to find one that had his hand shaking hand in about the right place to start. I did a loose selection of him (very loose) with the lasso tool. Then using the move tool i drug him out of that photo and into the one in which i needed him. I moved him into place and then created a layer mask and with a large soft brush i painted in black on the mask to blend the backgrounds from the two images together. This was very easy. I then made my brush much smaller and started carefully masking out the excess from my top layer. I did a bit of cloning where needed and then healed it a bit to blend better but for the most part just masked the layers together. The fingers on top of the certificate ended up way above where they were suppossed to be so i did another rough selection of her fingers and copied it and pasted to a new layer. I then slid them down into place and rotated them a bit using transform. I made another mask to clean up around the fingers and was done.
I should also mention that i used one light here placed to the right and bounced into an umbrella.

letter enhancement

I recently was asked to take a photo of a friend of mine who has just been inducted into the radio broadcasting hall of fame. He brought with him a prop which looked like a microphone but was actually a fm radio. When you plugged it in the letters on the top lit up. Well of course they were not that bright so i brought them to life in photoshop.
At the time i did this i used the magic wand tool and selected the letters. I selected one and then held down the shift key to add to my selection. When they were all selected i then hit the refine edge button and feathered the selection just a touch so the edges would look better. I then used a curve adjustment to add contrast and while still selected then bumped up the saturation. That pretty well did it.
Looking back now i would reccommend trying the selection with the color range command. I'll bet you could get it in one click. This is by far the best tool to use for selections as it gives you a great natural edge. If you saw a selection from the magic wand tool beside a selection made from the color range command I guarantee that you would never use the wand again.

coming soon

Sorry for my lack of posts lately.
I just got back from photoshop world in las vegas and i have a ton of new photoshop tips and ideas to share.
I also took about 1000 images while i was there so some of those should be appearing soon.
Thank you all for your patience.
I will try to get something up tonight.