I most of the time use a mask that I create with paint tools (mostly a hard brush to start with) and I might use color selecting tools when the photo is suitable. In the past I started these kind of selections with making paths (because they were needed to import stuff in Quark) and I sometimes forget that is rather easy too. Especially large straight surfaces like cars are hard to 'paint' freehand with my Wacom. I find the lasso tool unneccesairly wiggly. If you cough you have to start from the beginning. If you are painting in a mask you can just go back small steps (you HAVE to love multiple undo). Bonestructure, I would really recommend to explore things beyond the lasso tool. In my humble opinion it is not really suitable. Especially when you work with photos that are not perfectly sharp, painting a mask with a soft-ish brush with a low opacity can create beautifull edges, over with you can have more control then if you do blurring on a mask created with the lasso. I use more and more mask on adjustment layers too, for instance for changing colors in areas of a photo or just to change the color of a piece of clothing. Because it keept things so flexible. Sometimes it pays to explore different ways of working. Two weeks ago I was in a photo studio and the photographer never dared to do things with alpha channels or masks. So he was erasing like it was 1985 on his precious digital photos. Destroying those sweet pixels that could come in handy later... But everybody should of course work the way he or she prefers. An open mind can help you speed up things and even save valuable time when those pesky clients keep changing their minds. Especially if the pixels are still there to help you.