The Earth picture was masked to rid the black B/G. Here it is over top a gradient color layer. The layer blend mode for the "Earth" layer is screen.
step 4 of 8
The lake and sky, having been masked is superimposed over the blue gradient and earth.
step 5 of 8
This is a render of a model i created in Max. The textures on the aircraft were made using CS5. The pilot (see link below) is an opacity plane, once again some Photoshop work to make the opacity map for the render in Max.