Photoshop trick for removing backgrounds in product shots

Since I have been finishing the client booklet for the loft, I've been making digital sample boards. Since my page background is dark, it looks much better if I remove the plain background from behind the product images -- except for the usually-white halo left behind, and the commands under Layer > Matting don't always work so well.

I have figured out a trick to lessen the manual labour in removing the background.

1. Just in case, duplicate the layer your product is on.
2. Make a new layer and fill it with a colour approximating your page background, using the Paint Bucket.
3. Switch back to your duplicated layer.
4. Select the background, probably via the Magic Wand, such that your selection is mostly correct.
5. Now hit Q to go into Quick Mask mode, and use the Brush and Eraser tools to touch up the selection. This is way easier than repeated magic-wanding.
6. Now that the selection is touched up, fuzz its edge with Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur at approximately 1px. This will reduce the opacity of, and thereby soften the edge of the resulting product shot-on-transparent-background, which looks way better than the hard edge, because you can never get the edge perfect.
7. Delete the background. You might have to inverse the selection first.
8. Touch up as necessary with soft Eraser or commands from Layer > Matting.
9. Delete unnecessary layers, e.g. your original layer and your dark test background.
10. Save as something with transparency support, probably PNG format.

There are also some useful tutorials at http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/blremovebackg.htm