Just started doing some photography. As I don't have filters (+ i'm not that skilled yet) a lot of my images did not come out as I wished them. So I decided to throw a few into PS.7 & muck about. I'm posting both the original photo the modified photo. I wanted to create a little bit of a fairytale look & think i've got the foreground sorted. However, in the process of doing this the sky has become very pale. The first bit of help I need is on how to add colour to the sky. I tried to place a diff sky layer from a saved image in the background, but ran into the obvious problem on how to select the trees & branches so that it would not lie over them. I have tried many ways, but alas, no success. There must be a way with alpha selections or 'blend if grey', but these areas are in the wilderness of my ignorance. Any ideas? the second bit is the ray of light. i want to have motes of dust, etc floating in it, to give it more dimension & realism. I think i have to do this by loading a texture as an alpha channel. is this right. if it is, how do i do it? Thanks in advance. Any help would be greatly appreciated:o)