Mesh seams practical advice I imported a model from another program and it didn't include any seams or a UV layout. When I unwrapped it, there were a lot of left over polys and I want to try and clean it up and have fewer islands to deal with. (e.g., I want larger islands with fewer small pieces that are unconnected and logically should be connected). The reason I want to do this is to make editing the texture in photoshop easier and more intuitive.

To start with, I'm looking at jewelry on the character model as shown below. It's kind of a complex shape and I'm struggling to figure out where to put the seams. I started with the loop cut tool and created a seam for every loop edge the tool could find. However, I'm not sure what to do next. Edges tend to go inside other shapes where you can't see them, and the ALT select is not a reliable method for getting the seam all the way around the mesh part.
There isn't one good method for unwrapping an object, it needs some experience, here are the steps I would do:
Make sure it doesn't have a UV map, Seams usually do not get shared by different programs, so sometimes they do have a UV Layout, just no seems. Make sure that's not the case.
Don't create additional Vertices (Knife tool)
Worth a shot: in Edit Mode hit U and choose smart UV project. It will probably create a lot of small islands though, which might not be what you want.
In edit mode select everything and hit ALT J. That gets rid of as many triangles as Blender  can do. If you're lucky, now you can use ALT click on edges to select loops and turn them into seams.
Try to hide the seams (less visible places on your object), because that's were texture artefacts can occur. It's not super important when you're drawing yourself, but it's a good practice none the less.
Create as big islands as possible without distortion/overlapping.