magic wand? Just play with the tolerance a bit.

I typically contract the selection by a pixel or 2 and then feather in by a couple pixels to create alpha channel.

Data...
what do yo mean by "contract the selection by a pixel or two"?

Selection > Modify > Contract/Expand

That's what I do as well.

If you're using a new version of photoshop use the

Filter > Extract

function, checkout the help to learn how to use it. Saves you a lot of work if you're working with hair, trees and so on. Unless the masked image will be large and printed in hight quality the

Selection > Modify > Contract/Expand
Selection > Feather

method will be precise enough though.

yup, agree with all of the above. The Filter >Extract command is the best, however you may also find the pen tool helpful. The been tool is much better for cropping out figures than the Lasso tool. Once you've drawn around the figure right click inside and feather if desired.

The contract/expand is new for me... i'm going to try that

Speaking of figures... Does anyone know where to find a good tutorial on vector tracing and coloring figures?

Try using a Quick Mask. You can toggle between mask mode and regular mode by clicking the two little icons below your color picker. You'll get more control because you can choose the brush, feather, opacity of the selection edge and you can edit the mask quite easily. Just paint you mask, flip back to regular mode to see the selection, then edit the mask as needed. It should give you the best results for detailed selections.

Or you could use a real mask.. drag your fashion model image into the rendering as a new layer, and apply a mask, masking out all the information you don't want to be visible.

Masks essentially work the same as Quick Masks, but you can always edit them later and you don't lose any information from the original image like you do when making a selection with any of the selection tools, or using a Quick Mask.

You'll definitely have more control using masks and the final image will look better, but it will likely take slightly longer to do.

like defenestrator, i use the pen tool for extracting figures, trees, etc. you can adjust the form of the selection by the grips before extracting the image. you might not even need to feather the selection if you surround the image with the selection line close and precisely enough.

Do the following
Select the layer with your super sexy model character.

Then under LAYER (top menu), select: MATTING/DEFRINGE (1 PIXEL), all the black shit around the figure should disappear. repeat the operation if necessary.

why dont we just share our cropped images....

It is much better to use your channels...invert the colors, i.e. make what is white in the channel black. Load that channel as a selection. Invert if necessary...then using the selection menu increase or decrease by a pixel or two and make sure anti-alias is on...then cut. Perfect for any complex shape that needs to be cut out. You may have to clean up afterwards but it is much easier than laboring with lassos.

Channels are the key to Photoshop.

Another nice thing is you can then also make the selection from the channel work a path and export it to illustrator. Then it is vector and can scale freely.