Attached Link: Archetyped Gallery from my website

I have to disagree with bonestructure on this one. White is a bad background color, because it's very difficult to seperate (sp?) the highlights of the figure from the background. For this reason, black is also a bad choice due to the shadows.

This is a complex subject that many people earn a lot of money solving. I suggest you google for "bluescreen photoshop," "greenscreen photoshop," and "matte painting."

One simple, yet incomplete, method is to simply use the lasso to outline the subject, and then copy/paste it as you need.

The problem with this method will be the sharp edges which will look unrealistic. You can solve this problem by feathering the selection (Selection -> Feather).

The next problem you'll have is the the edges of your selection will be colored by the lights and nearby materials. Depending on image size and output resolution, this may not matter to you very much.

In order to do a true bluescreen effect, you need to very carefully regulate the light hitting the background so that it is very even, then you can remove the background color by a variety of ways. When doing this you need to prevent the light bouncing off the background from hitting the subject as much as possible. My preferred method to isolate the figure from the background is to use a color selection in order to create a mask, which you can then refine further.

This is how I made several of the images which I link to in this message.

They had chained him down to things that are, and had then explained the workings of those things till mystery had gone out of the world....And when he had failed to find [wonder and mystery] in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation.
      -- HP Lovecraft, The Silver Key