In my tutorials, I just finished the last lesson in chapter 5. I started this chapter with the picture of the boy and the basketball, which had a blank background. I learned how to change the background color using the eyedropper tool, add new colors to the swatches panel, use the gradient tool, and learned how to match colors. When comparing the image I created on Photoshop to the one in the book, they look exactly alike, which means I followed the directions correctly.
Our whole class is currently working on the "Depth of Field" project. I've taken a couple decent photos to use for this project, but I need to go out and take a few more photos. The picture above is one of the photos I've taken that I'm currently editing in raw file.