Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 is subtitled "Industrial Strength Production Techniques" because that is really what the focus of this book is: how to move images through Photoshop. This is not about being creative; it is about getting the job done and getting it right. It is also a technical book. The discussions contained within are there so you can learn how Photoshop 'thinks' about images so that when you are in a situation that has no canned solution, you can think for yourself and create a solution that works.

A lot of Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 is geared toward prepress production. The original book came about because in this day and age of the desktop prepress process, there were not a lot of people to ask when you had a problem. Now the book has matured in to all phases of image production. It's about photography as well as images, and in fact one of its goals is to help photographers translate their own images into the digital world of Photoshop. The book is contained in 768 pages divided into 12 chapters.

Chapter 1, "Building a Photoshop System," will show you what you need to build a quality Photoshop system. Mac or PC is not as important as having enough power to do the kind of work you need done. Chapter 2, "Image Essentials," reminds us what computers do not understand about pictures, tone, color, or any of those other things that we view as important about images. While you won't have to understand binary math to work with Photoshop, it does help to understand how Photoshop thinks and how it will process your photos.

Chapter 3, "Color Essentials," examines the different ways that different people think about what makes a color. Regardless of whether it is RGB, CMYK, Lab, or some other variation, this chapter looks at the fundamental color relationships, and how Photoshop presents them. Chapter 4, "Color Settings," constitutes the heart of Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3. While the authors consider every topic to be important, they feel that unless you understand how Photoshop handles color behind the scenes, you will never achieve the quality of image that you should be able to get.

Chapter 5, "Building a Digital Workflow," explores what it takes to build a true digital workflow that allows you to make quick work of your digital images. Because taking digital images is so cheap, you soon find you have so many more images in which you will find yourself quickly mired and spinning your wheels. This chapter is all about getting through Adobe Camera Raw as quickly as possible. Chapter 6, "Essential Photoshop Tips and Tricks," continues the work started in chapter 5 in that the biggest boost to your productivity is to accelerate it with the tips and tricks found here. As a sideline, contained here are a couple of Easter eggs in Photoshop including one honoring the late Bruce Frasier, one of the authors of this book.