Soaring Eagle

The above image is a composite image of the two seperate images below. The two images have been seperately opened in Photoshop and placed in seperate layers. The layer with the bird flying has been selected to remove the sky area.

 The sky area of the image has been selected using Select/Color Range, using the options available as shown below.

Any areas around the bird can be tidied up using the Quick Selection Tool available on the left side menu bar.

The image of the sky was then selected and modified using levels and curves to improve the tonal range and a slight boost to the saturation was given to improve the overall image.

 With Photoshop CS5, there is an enhanced refine edge tool available to help fine tune the edge selections. In this case I selected the View Mode in On Black, here you can try various options. The smart radius feature adapts the selection approach between the bird feathers and the sky. There is also an Erase Refinements tool to remove any unwanted areas from being modified, where you do not want to include areas in the mask, in this image this tool was not needed.

After I was happy with the image selections I flattened the image and then saved it.