Here is a highly requested tutorial. Everyone wants to know how to take a picture and replace the background or make it transparent.

Here is a method using the extract tool that first appeared in ps 5.5.

Notice the strands of hair near the shoulders.

Open your image, and double click on the "background" name in your layers pallette. This will turn it into a layer.

1. Take the marker tool and trace around the image you want to extract. Keep the marker 1/2 way on the image and 1/2 on the background. For solid areas use a small brush, for softer areas like the loose hair, use a larger brush. Tip: to adjust the brush size use the [ and ] keys.

2. Now take the bucket tool and fill the area you want to keep.

Click OK.

There will be a few areas that have been accidently deleted. You can clean up the image using the eraser and the history brush.

In the history pallette, click next to the image before the extract state.

Select the history brush.

Select a small brush size and "paint" back the image.

Now you can place the image onto any background you wish.