Photo masking is a task that typically takes forever and seldom looks the way you wish it did. Maybe I’m late to the party, but after recently upgrading to Creative Suite 5.5, I have to say that I’m absolutely blown away by the image selection tools in Photoshop. The “extract” tool is gone (which is fine, because it was a drag). In its place, you have the (vastly improved) “quick selection” tool and the “refine edge” tool, which lets you dial in your selection even further. Simply put, it does yarn.

The image above was shot on a white background, masked and layered on black.
Canon 60D, ISO 250, F13, 1/25 sec.