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I'm fairly new to Photoshop and Illustrator, work for a civil engineering firm, and need to learn some photo simulation - taking an existing photo and adding the proposed feature (i.e. road, sidewalk, bridge, etc.) while still maintaining a "realistic" look. I do okay if I have a photo of something that looks like what the new item will look like, but often times I have nothing to start with. ANY help would be appreciated. Thanks!

What it comes down to (((for me))) is mastering your preferred tools...you can learn a great deal simply by playing around, experimenting with various tools/techniques just to see what you can create.

I think that a good understanding of LAYERS would help the most in your line of work, because you can add many layers and play with their "opaqueness", ie : what shows in your "overall image", without destroying/obliterating any of your previous work until your results are exactly what you want, or at least close enough.