PureGraphix
This tutorial can sometimes save you hours of tedious selection time with the lasso tool. Going around tiny objects and falling asleep causing imprinted keys on your forehead, and also can be used to make a neat little effect.
Start with the picture. (original)
Make a copy of it while it is still in color and then move back to the original. In order to see what you are working with, hide the layer above it by clicking the little eyeball in the layers pallet.
Make this layer grey scale (ctrl+shift+U). This doesn't create the black and white look I prefer, so lets work with the levels (ctrl+L). Make something similar to what I have below, or to whatever you think looks nice.
Move back to the top layer, this one should be in color and cover your black and white layer. Go to the "Select" menu and click 'Color Range'. This brings up a program that many people don't even know Photoshop offers.
Click on the yellow of the flower. It may show only a part of what you want selected, so drag the fuzziness bar all the way up, until you get a good color selection.
Make sure that "invert" is selected, so you select everything BUT the color.
Selection should look like the picture below. Press Delete, and there you go! A really neat effect with hardly any work at all.
(optional - you might want to lower the opacity or fill on the colored layer, so give it a different effect that many people find attractive)
Final
- Pure -
