Some problems with Photoshop

[Purebreedalien]

I'm running Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended Version 10.0 and I'm running into a few minor problems I'm sure some of you Photoshop masters can help me fix.

EDIT: I found the Polygonal Lasso Tool. 

Also whenever I open an image it's always much darker in Photoshop than it is anywhere else, for example, take this image



but in Photoshop:



So any help in this area would be great too.

I'm not very good with all the technical stuff so patience may be required  Thanks in advance.

[Pn2501]

You could try changing your colour profile, to match your monitor.

[Purebreedalien]

How do I do that? (I'm using a laptop so I don't know if that makes any difference?)

[Pn2501]

It's in the preferences section (on the Mac) just google colour preferences for photoshop windows, you'll probably find some good tutorials that way.

[Purebreedalien]

I found some articles and I have no idea what they mean.