Replacing sky

Hi,
Here's a shot of the mighty Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. Just as an experiment, I replaced the sky in the original picture (which was converted in BW). Any advice or comments welcome.

Cheers,
Dan

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Dan, excellent job.

You've got a very mild halo in place along the cliff and around the castle(?) in the background. Very mild, and I only found it because I'm picky and I knew what to look for.

Excellent job picking a sky to match the scene. It fits. Good work on the reflection in the sea, but it doesn't seem to fit so great. (Hats off for remembering to do this though!) The problem I see is that the sea looks like it's reflecting a cloudless day. And the sun's reflection (in the center at the horizon) doesn't match the sun in the sky, which is over to the right a bit.

A trick that worked for me is to copy the sky to a new layer, and then mirror it and move it to the bottom half of the picture. Erase this mirrored layer leaving only the parts where the sea exists. Adjust opacity to taste.

For extra points you might want to try to add some shadow back to the left sides of the cliff and that big rock spire. The sun is up and to the right, so everything down and to the left should be in shadow. Parts of the top of the cliff - where it should be receiving more light - and darker than the sides of the cliff that can't possibly be receiving sunlight.

Again, excellent job. And again, I'm picky and know what to look for since you posted the before & after.

A nice job but the tweaks noted above will make this an excellent job

A trick that worked for me is to copy the sky to a new layer, and then mirror it and move it to the bottom half of the picture. Erase this mirrored layer leaving only the parts where the sea exists. Adjust opacity to taste.

The tip you suggested is really neat. I too think that he did a great job in post.

Superb. Artist and magician.

SuzyView

Thank you all for advices. I will give it a try...
Cheers,
Dan

I wanted to do something like this with PS Elements 3 but apparently it doesnt support the feature where you add a layer and then paint over the sky to bring Layer 1 through. Sorry can't remeber the name its a bit late

If anyone has found a workaround on this in PSE 3 I'd like to hear it. Thanks