Chapter 7, "Image Adjustment Fundamentals," is about tonal manipulation, the adjusting of the lightness or darkness of your images. This is what makes the difference between a flat image and one that pops out and draws you into it. Chapter 8, "The Digital Darkroom," will show you how to get the most out of adjustment layers to make your fixes instead of burning pixels. By using these techniques, you will be allowed to experiment more with little or no degradation in quality and maximum flexibility.

Chapter 9, "Making Selections," is important when silhouetting and compositing images as it is when making nondestructive tonal corrections, color corrections, sharpening, and retouching. But to do this you also have to become comfortable working with masks and channels. Chapter 10, "Sharpness, Detail, and Noise Reduction," points out that for us to have a lifelike image, it must have sharp edge definition. No matter what quality there is to your scanner or digital camera, you will lose some definition and hence lose sharpness. Here are some techniques to bring that sharpness back.

Chapter 11, "Essential Image Techniques," is a chapter that gives a lot of techniques that allow your images to soar. This is basically a potpourri of tips and tricks that will not only make your images better, but speed up processing as well. Chapter 12, "Image Storage and Output," provides methods of output for those professional images that you are now creating for both printed as well as online destinations.

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 is well thought out and well executed. It is definitely a must-own for anyone who wants to get to the nuts and bolts of working with Photoshop. There are hundreds of tips that can be found in the 700 plus pages. Keep in mind that this is not a book on how to use Photoshop - instead, it is a book about how to understand Photoshop once you know how to use it.

Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 shows from chapter one that nothing is going to be glossed over. Everything is covered in depth and with the precision of laser surgery. It is not a book for the neophyte or the person who, because they had the few extra bucks, bought Photoshop instead of Elements. Rather, it is for the person who works with Photoshop and purchased Photoshop because they need the power. If you are that kind of user, or want to be that kind of user, then Real World Adobe Photoshop CS3 is a must own.