I have Elements 5 and can, not always though, isolate and object.  Say, I want to isolate on white. Then I have to have a blank background to paste the isolated object to. The question really is what is the best way to produce a  perfect, neutral white blank  background? Mine tend to be overly bright, or gray ...

vhopto

A light tent will help. Or you could use the lasso or magic wand tool to make a selection around the object you want to isolate. You could also create a new layer in Elements 5 and use the pencil or brush tool to trace around the object that you want to isolate. Then select the solid color image outline that you created with the pencil or brush tool and hit delete.

After this, make sure that the selection of the deleted object is still on the screen and switch layers to the image you want to isolate. Use ctrl+shift+i to reverse your selection. Then hit delete and your image will be isolated over whatever color you like(create another layer for your background color). This is a bit different in Photoshop CS(clipping paths), but it will work in Elements 5. Hopefully, I made some sense. You could also just use the brush tool to "wing it" if you like.

Thanks, Whiz!

I have selected the object, then inversed the selection and filled the background  with pure white and that did the trick.

vphoto