Giving a bird a new background

The blue skies of yesterday were replaced with almost pure white today when I took the camera out to see what was around. This sunless sky is actually perfect for taking portraits but is not really conducive to birds on branches photos! My aim was to capture a nice photo of the Little Wattle Bird but while I was waiting for the Wattle Bird to cooperate and move around to the side of the tree where I was set up a different feathered visitor arrived.
With so much brightness around it, finding the correct exposure was hit and miss for a while. I used full manual because the presets for Aperture priority were not working the way I liked!

1/25sec f/10 ISO 200

Now if anyone knows what this pretty bird is - I would appreciate you telling me!
The brilliant white of the sky really detracts from the image so I determined to change it for something more suitable. While working on the picture I decided that I should go back and make a snapshot of each of the steps so that I could share them with you - just in case you would like to do this with one of your own photos.
The first thing I did was go into my folder of "skies" - within that folder I have saved skies from every time of day and sky condition and should I need something a different colour I would change the white balance on the sky! So my collection, although not used every day of the week, is very useful.

Here is the sky I chose. It is a sky that would suit a sun-less subject such as the one I have of the bird.
Using Photoshop Elements 10 I double clicked on the picture of the bird to make it the active picture and went to Image>Magic Extractor.

 The picture opens in a new working area. The tools are on the left as in the usual work zone. The top tool is the one you use to mark what you want to keep. The recommendation is to put spots on the subject but I have much better success with drawing lines so that all the different colours are touched.
The same with the background - I make a few squiggles - more if there is more detail in the background.

Preview is clicked (top right!) to see if all I want is included and there are no transparent bits where I need opacity. Then "OK" to make the extractor do the work.
When the picture appears back in the main area of Photoshop elements I select all -  Ctrl+J - and copy it to the clipboard - Ctrl+C. Double click on the sky to make that the active image and paste from the clipboard - Ctrl+V.

To get the bird and the branches looking as clean as this on the new background it is necessary to do a bit of tidying up. I did this using a mask and brush tool.

The Layers palette is on the right of the screen. Click the square box with the pale circle in the middle to apply a mask to the layer. (Actually I took the screen shot at the wrong moment, the layer should be highlighted, not the background. Sorry about that. If the layer is not highlighted the mask will not be applied) When you get a mask the foreground and background colours change to black and white. You will need black as the foreground colour to paint onto the white mask.
Zoom in VERY close to do your cleaning up - and use a soft edged brush, not a smooth edged brush. That way the subject will blend gently into the background and not look like a cutout that has been pasted there.
Finally, the bird was sharpened (not the branches that were in softer focus) and the image was flattened and saved with a new name.

If you have any problems following these instructions, ask in the comments and I will try to help.
AJ