Here’s a review of a plugin I recently found for Photoshop, AKVIS Chameleon.

DEMO : Windows Mac

AKVIS Chameleon is an efficient tool for automatic adjustment of inserted objects to the target image color range and smoothing of the
object’s border.
The tool is very easy to handle as it does not require precise selection of objects. You copy an object, insert it into another picture, press the
button and the object adjusts to the new background as chameleons do – adapting to the new color range and blending with the environment.
The tool can be useful for several purposes:
– to insert new objects in a picture, but with much more flexibility and ease than with conventional tools (collage creation);
– to conceal undesirable artifacts by replacing them with the nearby parts of the image (similar to the clone tool).

Starting images (from SXC)

1. First, open the sky image and Filter > AKVIS > Chameleon (take snapshot)

2. Mask out the sky on the bird (I wont go into methods here, as its an example of plugin use not for masking) and place it on a layer above the sky, with any transformations you want to make.

3. Select only the bird (Control + Click on the layer mask, or layer if you have applied the mask already)

4. Make sure the bird layer is selected, and Filter > AKVIS > Chameleon (use snapshot)

I’ve done some brightness/contrast adjustments on this to get it to stand out some more, but thats about all there is to using the plugin. My use is quite crude, this can be applied to many many situations with greater effect.

Evaluation:
Overall, this software is very easy to use and gives good results for the time it takes. But, I have to think that anyone who has spent the money on a major program like Photoshop will have the skill and motivation to learn simple masking and blending.
Knowing how to use the tools in Photoshop would probably eliminate any need for the plugin, but unless you are well practiced at blending and colouring this can be hard to acheive. Its maybe more useful as a guide from which you can see how images would blend together before you spend the time to make them yourself.