Before you can use the place command, you need to have the layer mask deselected. Click on the layer thumbnail of the clouds layer to deselect the layer mask.

Choose File > Place. Browse for the photo of the city then click OK. Scale and position the image like shown below then press enter on your keyboard to apply the changes.

Move the layer with the city background below the layer with the clouds.

First, we’ll make the layer grayscale using the same technique we used earlier with the clouds layer. Right click on the layer of the city background then choose blending options.

Apply the settings as shown below then click OK.

If you look closely at the bottom of the city edge layer there is a hard edge. To fix this, we’ll fade the edge with a layer mask.

With the layer of the city background selected, click on the
to add a layer mask.

Select the eraser tool then right click anywhere in the document window. Use a large brush with a hardness of 0%.

Make sure that your layer mask is selected. It should have a white border around the layer mask thumbnail to indicate that it is selected. With the eraser tool, erase the bottom of the edge so that the hard edge is gone.

Here’s the before and after of fading the bottom edge.

Here’s what our image looks like so far.
