These are the sources: i used vertus fluidmask for the cutouts, it's fast fast fast but you can have same results with the PS tools, and for the hdr image shot at dawn i've used Photomatix both to extract the hdr and the tone mapping. Again you can achive same results (even better) with photoshop, but its a little trickier.
The pictures containing creatures were illuminated with one umbrella hensel 1200 for the dog, two for the jumping girlfriend.
Hope this english is understandable. Give those tools a try, they're amazing...