The goal of Photoshop CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide is to get you started down the road in using Photoshop for Editing and manipulating pictures . in this book you will learn the essentials of Photoshop and explain not just how features work but also why and what context they are most useful .
Photoshop CS3 Visual QuickStart Guide is 439 pages long divided into 27 chapters.

Chapter 1, "Photoshop interface" starts off by looking at Photoshop's UI in windows and Macintosh , covering all tools and palettes in Photoshop UI.

Chapter 2, "Color Management" Covering all about colors in this chapter starting by Displays, modes and channels , Color management basics.

Chapter 3, "Acquire, Create, Save " Talking about how to use digital cameras, Downloading photos , Using Scanner , Creating new , blank documents and Saving files .

Chapter 4, "Bridge" Covers all about Bridge Application and how to use efficiently to speed your working in your projects .

Chapter 5, "Workspaces" shows you how to change the zoom level of an image, move a magnified image in its windows, switch screen modes, hide/show the palettes, and assign color labels to menu and palette menu commands and create and save custom workspaces.

Chapter 6, "Pixel Basics" in this chapter you will learn how to change the resolution and dimensions of an image, change its canvas size and crop, flip, rotate it .

Chapter 7, "Layer Basics" shows how to create, select and restacking layers , Working with layer groups , deleting individual layers ,Merging and Flattening Layers.

Chapter 8, "Select" you will learn in this chapter , how to create selections using the Marquee, Lasso, Quick selection and magic wand tools and you'll also learn how to refine selection edges modify ,move, hide and transform selection marquee .

Chapter 9, "Combine Images" Here you'll learn how to copy selections and layers within the same document and between documents and use layer mask to blend images together .

Chapter 10, "History" in this chapter you'll learn how to restore, delete , and clear previous states and restore area of an image to a prior state by using the History brush .

Chapter 11, "Tonal Adjustment" shows how to use adjustment commands , and after that you will learn how to use threshold and posterize commands , the histogram palette , the level commands .

Chapter 12, "Colors & Blending Modes" This chapter is reference guide to the blending modes which are available for tools , layers and commands.

Chapter 13, "Color Adjustments" in this chapter you'll learn how to adjust image's colors , you will learn how to creating fill layers , converting layers to grayscale , apllying Auto Color Correction and Using the curve command.

Chapter 14, "Brushes" in this chapter you will learn all about brushes in Photoshop , Brush tool , smudge colors with smudge tool and ease parts of a layer with Eraser and magic Eraser tools .

Chapter 15, "Camera Raw" in this chapter you'll learn how to open digital photos via the camera raw plug-in and you will also use the many tabs in camera raw to correct photos for exposure, color and lighting deficiencies.

Chapter 16, "Exposure" in this chapter you'll perform shadow and highlight correction , adjust the color temperature to compensate for improper lighting.

Chapter 17, "Refocus" in this chapter you'll apply the lens blur filter and use vignettes to create a focal point in your photo, apply motion blur filter to simulate motion .

Chapter 18, "Retouch" shows you how you will perform color changes such as changing product colors using Match Color command , the Replace color command and the color replacement .

Chapter 19, "More Layers" Shows you how to blend pixels between layers, create and use layer masks, create and use clipping masks, create and edit Smart Object layers .

Chapter 20, "Layer Effects" in this chapter you'll get instruction for applying, copying , moving , and removing layer effects.

Chapter 21, "Filters" You'll learn techniques for applying filters, learn how to create and use smart filters, combine filters to change character of any image .

Chapter 22, "Type" You'll learn how to create and select editable type and apply a host of character and paragraph attributes .

Chapter 23, "Gradients" in this chapter you'll how to create Gradients by Gradient editor and apply Gradients via a Gradients fill adjustment layer .

Chapter 24, "Presentation" You'll learn various ways to finish and present your photos to any one , both in print and on screen .

Chapter 25, "Preferences & Presets" In this chapter you'll get to know all about in the Preferences dialog box and how to save and load brush too and other preset .

Chapter 26, "Print" you will learn how to choose print options in Photoshop , print to inkjet printer, create and print spot color channels .

Chapter 27 , "Export" You'll learn how to save and preparing your files for other applications for print output and for viewing online

The authors writes clearly and the easy to follow tutorials are great to learn from. , and recommend for beginners to get started into Photoshop CS3

I bought this book because of the title but I have to be honest the examples are not very clear. I look for a book that has clearly explained examples that lead you to a final product. This book doesn't even tell you which examples to open for each chapter. Most books say open the file (and gives the file name) then it walks you through each step explaining what is being done as you go. This book doesn't do that as evidenced in the chapter about layers where is doesn't clearly explain which files to open or what to do with them to get to the final outcome.