new-theme advice/assistance/direction

Hello I’ like to modify a theme I saw in a wordpress theme book( it referred to themeshaper.com). The theme that I liked is called Neutica. I downloaded version 1.0.9 off of www.ads-software.com. The screen shot that was in the book looked much nicer than the one I downlloaded.

I was hoping for advice on how to best modify a theme offline( adjusting the color scheme and adding social networking options). I started to read the informative posts on themeshaper.com.? but not sure how to see it.

I own a Microsoft computer, the adobe CS4 suite with dreamwaver. I installed apache too.
Thanks
James