i need to erase the background of an object in about 15 pictures. they are large...bigger than 640x480... erasing the bg by hand takes a lot of time. erasing using the magic wand or the magic eraser is less reliable because some parts are left in, some are erased by mistake. is there a way to decrease the work, or at least make it simpler? thanx.

Use the lasso and remove as much as possible before you use the eraser or magic wand. Depending on how many colours are in your image, and the definition between foreground and background, you may be able to use the magic eraser, or the extraction tool. You can also mask the area you want to keep, and delete the rest. With the wand turn the tolerance down. there are a number of different ways of doing this. finding the one that works the best for you is the hard part.

I like to use the Magnetic Lasso Tool. Great for complex edges. You have to tweak the width, edge contrast and frequency. After you make your selection, right click and do a Select Inverse and delete background or right click and do a Layer Via Copy. If you do the Layer Via Copy, you can lower the opacity of the original layer to see if you got everything you wanted. The Extract doesn't work very well. It does leave bits and pieces all over the place.