Gradient sky smoothing - how to

[AdF]

I hope this is not repetitive.... as a newbie from Photoshop one landscape image treatment I completed regularly was replacing a sky that was bluer in one part than another with a nice smoothly graded sky running from darker blue on top to lighter blue at horizon.

In PS it was easy to use the colour picker to select top and bottom colours, select the sky and drag the gradient.  Fade effect if required and done.

Firstly, I can't figure out how to use the colour pickers to select top and bottom colours and then have them apply to the gradient tool as soon as you apply it.

Secondly, when I have applied some sort of sky gradient replacement there are handles a long way either side of the selected region that bleed the feathered region much further than expected and changing their positions doesn't seem to help.  It is just not straightforward (to me at least).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.

[firstdefence]

Create a Pixel layer and...