[Geoff F]

Painters paint what they think will make a good picture, which usually isn't the whole truth. It's the same with combining images to make a well balanced photo; just don't claim it is something which it isn't.

I remember when there was a lot of interest in wild big cats in some areas of the country and a tabloid team of photographers and reporters went to investigate. Of course they returned with some stunning photos; which no true nature photographer has ever achieved!

Mixing images successfully isn't easy and takes a lot of practice; so keep experimenting. There are several ways to achieve this. The commonest methods of using the Extract tools or creating a selection and then cropping to the selection are the easiest methods but they often leave a hard edge to the imported material.

I'm not sure if your software can work with layers; but one alternative method worth trying is to roughly draw a selection around the area to be added and crop to the selection. Paste as a new layer, enlarge the magnification, then carefully clean up the image by removing unwanted areas with an erasure brush. Vary the brush size, softness and opacity as required.

You can also use this basic method to selectively enhance brightness or sharpness on parts of a a photo. Work on a duplicate layer of your original and remove the areas which don't need any alteration and enhance the remainder. But once again, vary your brush opacity to avoid harsh edges.

For all of this type of work, a graphic drawing tablet gives better control than a mouse but good tablets aren't cheap; although if you enjoy this sort of manipulation there are hours of fun to be had.