Viewing Problems with psd file

The fishing must not be very good; that poor old eagle is as poor as a church mouse.

Digital Light and Color has FREE Color Mechanic Pro that works very well.

MV's Plugins has FREE Color Replacer that also works good.

Both of these programs are plugins for Elements that are accessible in the Filter menu.

The basic idea is you click the "eyedropper" on the color you want to change, then adjust the range of that color you want to change, and then choose the new color.

If the color changer also changes something you don't want changed, just mask that portion out.

As for clouds, FREE OnOne Effects Nine and also 10 have several cloud filters.

Also, a whole host of FREE cloud filters can be found in a search.

I make my own cloud filters in a most unusual way.

I take a photo of a sky that I like, select it, and Edit > Define Pattern; it will then be available in your "Patterns", where you can resize it to your liking and adjust opacity and blend mode.

One important aspect where most people miss the boat when replacing skies is how a sky appears as it gets closer to the horizon; try to find/create skies that have a clear, unobstructed, horizon.

Of course, this is not a factor if the horizon is not in the picture.

Let me begin by saying that you did an awesome job, popcorn!

Here is a youtube video that you might find interesting as it focuses on sky replacement with luminar. And an additional video as to how to add your own skies with a link to some that are offered by the person presenting the video.
This is one about adding your own skies.


I will now see what I can do using the image that you included above.  I agree that Buckskin's method sound interesting with the added bonus that it's free!  Sepiana has also offered some good information.

Now that may be well worth some consideration !

I checked it out a while ago; and, if I was looking at the right thing, it said $67 for a single computer license.

If I had $67, I would sit up with it; but, if I find four unidentified twenty-dollar bills wadded up on the ground, I just might be tempted to order that.

Is it as "One Click" easy as they make it out to be ?

 

That is what I am afraid of; it is kind of like electricity and running water, I might get to thinking I can't do without it and upset my precariously balanced budget.

Maybe I will talk to old Santy Clause....., but I hear that he has fallen on some pretty hard times himself.

Sepiana, thank you for posting the Alibony video from Karen Brokney. I remember seeing it many years ago and was disappointed when the Alibony site closed down. Its good to see that they are now available again on YouTube. I have bookmarked that page!

The multiply blend mode and mask method would work well on the eagle image.

www.youtube.com/channel/UCX7pQejDZTpq6ddlBhSSAyg

Kind regards
Chris

Hi All,
Once again thank you for the help.
I will check out the videos you have recommended.

I'm afraid I did the final edit by the seat of my pants, keeping Buckskin's suggestion to not cut out the Eagle but rather place the sky on the eagle.
I started with the eagle image, I made a duplicate of the background layer and cloned out a branch.
I made a selection of the dull sky using the magic wand, inverted it then spent a lot of time with refine edge and the selection brush tool with a tiny brush to get an accurate selection of the eagle.
I did not attempt to select the individual fine feathers that had cause me such problems on my previous selection, I just included them in the selection, background and all. I then saved lection.

I opened the replacement sky image and dragged it on top of the Eagle image.
Using the free transform tool I manipulated the new sky to get the effect I wanted and to fit it into the image.

I added a white mask to the sky layer and roughly painted in black on the mask to reveal the Eagle below including the problem feathers.
I then reloaded the saved eagle mask and painted white on the mask around the selection edge to reveal the sky up to the edge of the selection.
Because the original sky was dull dirty white the area around the fine feathers blended into the cloud, leaving the original very fine feathers visible.
Pretty Heath Robinson but it worked.

Please expand on this machine incompatibility.

I have a pretty strong solid machine, but there are still programs out there that don't work so well for me.

My machine takes to resource-hungry DxO PL2 like it was made for it; and yet, on every machine we have, both OnOne Perfect Effects 9 and 10 will crash on saving almost with every image (it makes no sense at all; it will safely save the finished image and then crash); the problem is bad enough to prevent me from getting very interested in spending money for any other OnOne programs.