photo background removal.

Hail the reader,

Removing the background from a picture.

I am reasonably au fait with the use of the cut out lab method for removing the photo background, however I visited a laser company and the person there used the bezier tool very effectively, pulling the nodes around the head and shoulders of the picture and so eliminating the background.

Can somebody please tell me if there is a good tutorial on this - like

1. do this
2. do this etc

Preferably a pdf which I can read as I go.

If not can some one tell me how I may learn to do this?

Thank you