Marquee tool (revisited)

I'm sorry! This post is about 2 weeks late, but I hope it's still helpful and demonstrates how ridiculosly EASY it can be to use the marquee tool. First, take a look at the screenshots below...

Simple, no? Here are a few extra tips:

1. To start, I usually create my marquee directly over the subject I want to "hide" (in this case, Brynne & pup). This way, you can make it the perfect size. Then, just move the marquee over to a similar area (typically right beside the suject), and use that as your copy area.
2. After you paste, it may seem like nothing has happened. That's because your pasted layer is directly on top of the original layer - it still needs to be moved. In this case, to the right. (Also, the new layer should appear in your layers palette.)
3. It may take more than one copy or edit to make your cover-up look realistic. For example, in my photo, you can still see Brynne's head poking out from the top the pasted layer. To hide that, I just copied and pasted a few more slices from the grassy area closest to her head. I also used the burn tool to darken the line between the tall and short grass.
4. Next, I cropped the picture to keep it simple...no roads and telephone poles, just Paige and the lush green grass. (see below)

5. Finally, I tried to enhance the photo itself (see final product in previous post). Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what I did, but I'll usually try out a few PS actions & some manual edits (hue/saturation, sharpness, selective color, etc.)