Replacing a cloudy grey with a blue sky.

I have Photoshop Elements 5, and Windows XP Home operating system. I am trying to replace a grey sky with a blue sky. I have "the photoshop elements 5 book for digital photographers" by Scott Kelby. He describes on pages 301-302 the steps necessary to replace the sky in a photo. I have followed the directions and have been unsuccessful. Obviously, I have missed something important. Part of the sky is changed and part isn't.
Any suggestions??
thanks

I don't have the Kelby book, but here is a way to replace the sky:
1. Rename the Background layer to something else. This is needed to create the transparency in the next step.
2. Use the various selection tools to select the gray sky. The Magic Wand should work well (you may have to Shift-click several times to select it all). Feather the selection 1 or 2 pixels and delete it, replacing the sky with transparent background.
3. Create a new blank layer below the picture layer.
4. Set Foreground & Background colors to blue & white respectively.
5. Select the Gradient Tool with the Foreground-to-Background option. On the blank layer draw a gradient vertically from the top of the sky to the bottom. This will create a natural-looking sky.
Notes:
You will get different results depending on where you start and end the gradient. You can redraw the gradient as many times as you wish on the same layer until you are happy with the result.
You might also try setting the Foreground & Background to dark blue & light blue for the gradient.
See this example: http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=10lyUmQQJsbmZNTwW3yKLw2vJDIs30
It's my house (I wish!)
Is this method similar to Kelby's?

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genadi_mak wrote:
I just tried to export a file from my old EP2 with the same settings as I always have done 100% quality and limited size of the file to 450KB using LR4.3. And, I see banding so, this is definately how LR4.3 compresses files vs whatever method of compression was done in LR3.
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genadi_mak wrote:
I experimented a bit and found that if I lower quality to 77% and Resize to Fit the photo to 1000X1000, I get the size of the file down to 350KB and good results on my 24" monitor but, will this be enough to print 4X6 if needed?
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genadi_mak wrote:
If I leave quality to 100% and Resize to 1000X1000 the size of the file increases to 650KB. This will result in page with photo catalog loading longer.
This is the opposite of what you should be doing to maintain the smallest files size. The only reason ro use a 100% Quality JPEG is if you plan on doing further editing to the file. Even when uploading files to a printer a 90% Quality setting is very adequate and will NOT show any difference in the final print. For the Web I have already suggested a JPEG Quality of 50 is adequate. Please read the article at the link Andrew posted and my comments.
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Here are my refined notes after watching the video: I posted most of it a few days ago in a reply.
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Replacing a cloudy grey with a blue sky.

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