Thanks Shane, for taking the time to help me with this. I'm still having problems though. I followed your steps and the picture added seems to come out b/w  and still more or less sitting on top of the image. when I adjust the sliders the color of the "apple" changes back to red.
let me make sure I didn't miss any thing
1.open car pic,

2. open apple pic,
3. make a copy of the apple pic transparent background,
4. drag apple copy unto car pic,
5. create new adj layer /channel mixer
6. create clipping mask
   7.make sure channel mixer is set to monochrome
   8.switch to apple layer and select overlay as the blend
7. play with the slides in the mixer.

best I can get it is to turn the constant slider all the up. but that gives it a different effect.
when I bring the apple over it never gets that silver looking effect  (your 3rd Pic) I think that is where I ran into my problem.

Jeff