Background isolation in Photographs

[pscafe]

Hello fellow members and friends

I have recently switched to digital camera and find that a lot of learning is required to master Ps for the processing of Digital photos. I am not a designer so I am not for the designing aspect of this software.

I do regular product and portrait a lot and in most of those I require to remove/ convert the background to a clean white (or any other solid) color. I use the select>color range option and then use the eyedropper tool with + sign to add the regions of the photo I require to convert to white. After that I make a new layer with the selected region and fill it with white.
But the problem is that I find that the "selection" is not really that smooth, rather looks jagged and I need to use tedious method of painting those jagged/ rough areas white. unfortunately, I find the process very time consuming and not also very "professional", if you understand what I mean.

Is there any way to refine my method so that I may get a better selection more defined according to the edges of the main subject?

Please help me out.

EDIT: if there is any free plugin available to do this quickly, please point that out to me. I have tried the Topaz remask, but could not really figure it out. Though, I admit I would love to do it in the Ps itself unless the plugin really saves a lot of time and labor for me.

Thank you.

[Treydahn]

Hey PsCafe,

In order to get the most out of background isolation in Photoshop, you'll need to use the Mask feature. Masks allow you to refine your selections with great precision. With masking, you can easily smooth out those jagged edges that you encounter when just using the "color range" option. Masking can take some time but as you probably already know, it's a very powerful tool in the world of photography and once you get the hang of it, it opens up the doors . I've included a link that breaks down Layer Masks pretty well from specifically a photographer's standpoint.

Layer Masks for Photographers

Hope this helps,

Treydahn

[kiwicolin]

there are a bunch of techniques here http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutoria...efine-edge.htm

[pscafe]

Hey PsCafe,

In order to get the most out of background isolation in Photoshop, you'll need to use the Mask feature. Masks allow you to refine your selections with great precision. With masking, you can easily smooth out those jagged edges that you encounter when just using the "color range" option. Masking can take some time but as you probably already know, it's a very powerful tool in the world of photography and once you get the hang of it, it opens up the doors . I've included a link that breaks down Layer Masks pretty well from specifically a photographer's standpoint.

Layer Masks for Photographers

Hope this helps,

Treydahn

there are a bunch of techniques here http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutoria...efine-edge.htm

Thank you so much. Let me go through the links and I shall post my feed back here.

[pscafe]

Thanks again...

I saw one video tutorial and read some others. The one on Layer mask was quite easy to understand except that how the Layer mask would help me to refile selection because it becomes really tough to understand the edge from the background. I may have not understood the process completely, so please point out my mistakes in understanding.
Regarding the "Refine Edge" option, it appears to be very promising. I tried the "radius" option. But that also not giving a very clear edge definition.
What I am doing wrong?

One more question: I have to work bot on the background and the subject, but separately. Is there any way to save the selection so that I can generate separate individual layer for the background and the Subject?