Photoshop :: Removing Objects

I've been looking for a tutorial I saw some time ago dealing with removing objects from photos, such as people or vehicles. It was a round-about technique, but seemed to work really well. Unfortunately, I can't find again, thought maybe someone here might know the technique, or know of the tut.

If I remember right, it wasn't something simple like the lasso or magic wand. It seems that it had to do with duplicating and inverting, then from there you could make the selection of the object you wanted to remove, and it made a much, much cleaner selection, and looked very natural when it's moved to another background.

Take for instance, a woman with long hair blowing in the wind. This technique selected all of the person, hair included, but left out the background, including the background that shows through strands of hair. I found this technique was much cleaner than other methods, and am hoping to find it again.