Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Classroom In A Book is part of the official training series for the Adobe graphics and publishing software from Adobe Systems, Inc. These lessons are designed so that you can learn at your own pace. If you are new to Photoshop, this book will provide you with the fundamentals you will need to master the basic skills. If you are experienced, you will find that there are many things that you will learn on all levels that will enhance your current skills and take you to the next level.

Adobe Photoshop CS3: Classroom In A Book is divided up into 14 lessons Before starting this book, you should have a working knowledge of your computer and operating system. You need to know how to work a mouse, open and close files as well as copying files and navigating though your file system. Your hardware needs to also support Adobe Photoshop CS3 as well.

Lesson 1, "Getting to Know the Work Area" shows you how to open Photoshop files, select tools from the tool panel, set options for the selected tool, how to zoom, open and use palettes, undo actions to correct mistakes, and how to customize the workspace.

Lesson 2, "Basic Photo Corrections" helps you understand image resolution and size, how to crop an image, remove the color cast using Auto Color Correction, how to use the Sponge, Dodge, and Unsharp masks as well as save an image for a page layout program.

Lesson 3, "Retouching and Repairing" explores the use of the Clone Stamp, Spot Healing Brush, Patch tool as well as making corrections on a duplicate layer as well as backtrack within your work session using the history palette.

Lesson 4, "Working with Selections" will have you making specific areas of an image active, moving and duplicating the contents of a selection, deselecting a selection as well as adding to and subtracting from a selection.

Lesson 5, "Layer Basics" will expose you to the proper way of organizing artwork on layers, creating, viewing, hiding and selecting layers, linking layers to work on them simultaneously and adding text and layer effects to a layer.

Lesson 6, "Masks and Channels" will instruct you on how to refine a selection, save a selection as a channel mask, create a layer mask and isolate a channel to make specific image corrections.

Lesson 7, "Correcting and Enhancing Digital Photographs" will work with you on how to process a camera raw image and save it as a digital negative, make corrections, adjust visual perspectives of objects and understand about best practices for organizing, managing and saving your images. You will also learn about the new product from Adobe, Photoshop Lightroom; a new workflow management program available separately from Adobe.

Lesson 8, "Typographic Design" examines the use of text within your images. How to use guides to position text, make a clipping mask from type, merge type with layers as well as warping a layer around a 3D object.