In addition to teaching the techniques that enable photographers to refine and publish their photos, the course includes live-action segments that encourage thinking photographically and shooting with Photoshop's capabilities in mind. Exercise files are included with the course.

Topics include:

- Calibrating a monitor

- Setting up color and file handling preferences

- Resizing images

- Processing images in Camera Raw

- Creating, targeting, and moving layers

- Making selections and taking advantage of the Refine Edge feature

- Masking and selective sharpening

- Improving a photo using Content-Aware Fill and the Puppet Warp tool

- Enhancing color, tone, and contrast with Levels

- Improving under- and overexposure using blending

- Burning and dodging techniques

- Converting an image to black and white

- Retouching essentials

- Publishing images to the web