Separating a image from its background...Help Please!

Guys I am very new to photoshop 7.0 but have found my way through very easily until now I am trying to remove a image from its background....can anyone tell me how to do this? do u use the magic wand?

Well this really depends on what you’re removing from what background. If say you’ve got a black man in a black suit against a bright, sunlit sky you could probably use the extraction filter or magic wand and get satisfactory results and save yourself a lot of time. While if you’re trying to separate a blushing bride from a garden of white roses then good luck with those methods. Maybe if you posted your image it would help.
It’s been my experience that elbow grease gives you the best results. Computers are getting pretty smart, but they don't (yet) know what looks right and what doesn't, so you have to. I usually duplicate my image layer and fill the original underneath with a contrasting color (white, more often than not). Then I work around the portion I want with the eraser tool, changing brush size for details and such. If you’re paranoid you could probably use a mask so you can correct your mistakes as you go. In any case patience is the key to a good cutout.

yeah if the object u want to seperate is significantly diffrent from the background use the magic wand toselect and remove. other wise u could spend ages using the paintbrush to change the colour and then use the magic wand. not sure what else i will get back to you

what exactly are you trying to do - completely select the background to delete it - or to select it and edit - eg. add a gaussian blur to give depth of field?