I see you still have problems with the image, let me give you another alternative, maybe this one will be more beginner friendly :P

As before, i've made a tiff with a bunch of alpha channels so you can compare your effect with what i'm getting: < http://www.2shared.com/file/5200151/3faa1f6f/forum_pic_new.h tml>

For this version you'll only use the blue channel so make a copy of it by dragging it to the new channel icon and then make a marquee selection around the upper part of the image that includes everything above the subjects neck hair. I've made an alpha channel to show you my selection. To load an alpha channel as a selection you Command+Click on it in the channels panel. With the selection active and the copy of the blue channel selected go to Image->Adjustments->Curves and select the tool that looks like a pen. With it selected, click and drag at the top of the curves all the way to the middle(most of the face should have turned white). Then drag down the other half and the rest of the image turned completely black. So you have something like this -_ in the curves panel. Just to make sure, if you look at the Output and Input values for the top line you'll have 255 output and the input goes from 0 to about 128 while the other part of the line has 0 for output and for input goes from where it left off(about 128) all the way to 255 and the image should look horrible. Click the Smooth button 3 times and you should get something similar to the first saved alpha channel.

With the selection still active, go to Select->Inverse to invert the selection and then go to Curves. Same thing as last time, only now you drag from input 0 to about 90 all the way to the top while the rest is down. Click on Smooth 4 times this time and check to verify that the channel you just made looks similarly to my second alpha channel.

Next up get the Lasso tool(or the Polygonal Lasso tool) and clean up the image till you get it to look something like my third alpha channel.

Now we come to the dodging(no burning this time around). Try to affect as little of the hair as possible with the Dodge tool. Invert the image by going to Image->Adjustments->Invert because the human eye sees very light gray on white much better than very dark gray on black. Select the dodge tool set to Highlights and 100% Exposure and a big brush with 0% hardness, i used a 600pixel brush but you'll need a bigger one if you're working on a bigger image then what i'm working with. Paint outside the gray areas so that only the drop off of the brush hits the gray background you want to remove. I was painting so that the edge of the brush was at about half of the brushes radius away from what i wanted to affect. You'll have to use a smaller brush to completely get rid of the background patter that's above the right shoulder. Check to see if you have something similar to my next saved alpha channel.

Next up, cleaning the subject. Go to Image->Adjustments->Invert to have the subject white again and clean up the rest with the Dodge tool. After you roughly cleaned up the image, get the brush tool set to about 35px size, 100% hardness. You'll now paint away with the brush tool the parts that the dodge tool couldn't handle like the small black dot in the subject's ear and around the hair. Periodically check how the image looks with the RGB shown as a rubylith overlay by hitting the ~ key so that you can see what should be part of the image and what shouldn't. You'll notice for instance that there's a small chip at the top of the subject's head that you'll have to fake out using the brush tool. Also at the right side, where the selection that you made ended you'll also have a small area to fix up with the brush tool.

That's about it, you should be at a point similar to my last saved channel. To actually use the alpha channel you have to Command+Click on the channel to load it as a selection, go to the Layers panel and with the layer selected press the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom. To check your work make a layer below and fill it white or black to see how it looks. If you want to cut out the subject and not just have a mask that hides the background then Control+Click on the Layer Mask thumbnail and chose Apply Layer Mask.

Well, this was long. It took longer to write this than to actually make the mask :p

av

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