Selection Brush - How to make it see edges better

[SandyKron]

I am hoping someone can recommend the best settings for the Selection Brush so that it can see the edges of an object better.

Recently the Selection Brush Snap To Edges grabs way more than it should.  I used to be able to remove the background in a few clicks, but not any more.   I don't know what I did, or what I changed.  I want to get it back to how  it worked before.

I sell wood slices, and photograph them in front of a white sheet so that it is easier to remove the background.  I used to be able to just select the white background by running the selection brush close to the wood slice, and delete it, and only occasionally had to turn off Snap To Edges to fine-tune, mostly when shadows were involved.  I never had to "refine" anything.  It just found the edges.  I did notice that it makes a difference how big the brush is, and where you start dragging from and to. I tried changing the brush, but didn't notice much difference.

I don't know what I changed, or what I did, but I sure hope somebody can help me figure it out.  I have a ton of new photos that I need to edit the background out of.  I have attached some screen shots.

Otherwise I'm just going to use my old Serif PhotoPlus8 because I really liked the  "Cutout Studio", as it makes it really easy to remove backgrounds.

I truly appreciate any help you can offer. Thank you in advance.

 

[firstdefence]

Use the quick mask 

and use the Paint brush tool (B) and one of the basic brushes, use the X key to change between mask Black - (adds the ruby overlay colour) and not masking -White (removes the ruby overlay colour) it helps to zoom in (Z) when doing this and you can get some very good masking done pretty quickly. It’s also be easier to select the background and not the logs.

If you want to make things even easier learn how to take photos away from the background and light the background evenly, this will reduce your editing work a lot, so have the logs on a table with a white table cloth and the background about 3 ft away, this will reduce the shadows cast and make selection much easier.

[SandyKron]

I didn't know about the quick mask!  It does make it easier.  I'll have to work with it more to get it figured out.

I really like your idea of placing the white background farther away and lit up more to avoid shadows.  I think that will really help me remove the entire background with a few clicks and drags.  I am going to do that for all future photos.  I will need to get a few more lights.

One thing I really liked about the Cutout Studio in PhotoPlus, is that you can set the tolerance.

I truly appreciate your help on this.

Thank you so much!