An important part of any good graphic designer's skillset is good deep edging techniques. Use Photoshop's polygonal lasso tool to cut out objects and backgrounds from pictures.


Zoom in quite close and make your selection close cut to the object that you want to cut out. You can also create a clipping patch with the same selection for use in other applications (like Freehand), which will leave the whole pic in tact, but create a display mask to only show your object.


Another technique called masking is maybe a better alternative in certain applications. A mask will display just your selection and you can use the quick mask button to quickly create your masks. A mask will display only what's within the selection and hide the rest of the image. This way you can always update your mask if you want to include other parts or tweak it until you're happy.