What is PhotoShop?
Photoshop  is the leading digital image editing application for the Internet, print, and other new media disciplines.  It has become a “killer app”, embraced by a wide spectrum of developers.

Traditionally, Photoshop  has been and continues to be a print industry standard.  There is a very strong chance that almost every photographic image you’ve seen in print (posters, books, magazines, flyers, etc.) has been prepared in Photoshop.  The powerful features that make Photoshop the standard for print images are also just as useful for Internet and display-based images (video and computer presentations for example).  Photoshop has evolved, expanding its print capabilities and adding Internet specific features essential to current and future web developers.

Included with Photoshop  is a web-specific companion program, ImageReady (version 3).  This manual covers the fundamental elements of both programs, concentrating entirely on the web-side of digital image production .  Photoshop is a very deep program.  It will take time to use it proficiently and explore its many features.  There are often many ways or methods to accomplish particular tasks.  We will be looking at common web-specific production objectives and the methods you can use to achieve your goals.  Before we get into the program, it will be useful to detail the nature of digital images themselves.