Hello Newbie to this forum and Photoshop. Hope to learn a lot about Photoshop

By the way, I have a few questions I want to ask about Photoshop. I hope it's okay to post it here.

1. Background - When I open a new project to be transparant, it always ends up with a color (whatever color is set on the background color thingy) when I save it. I don't know how to disable the background color. Any idea how?

2. How do I take this image here without the background coming along with it. I just want the girl and not the backgrounds around it. I tried to select around it and copied and pasted, and I tried the Magic Wand but couldn't take just the girl. http://members.cox.net/molinawill/Images/PinUp001.jpg

LOL... sorry couldn't explain this better. I'm a new newbie he he he...

Thanks so much in advance!