Graphical skins: Images that define the appearance of the skin. These images can JPEG, GIF, or PNG files, or they can be symbols embedded in SWF files. Typically you use drawing software such as Adobe® PhotoShop® or Adobe® Illustrator® to create graphical skins.
Programmatic skins: ActionScript or MXML classes that define a skin. To change the appearance of controls that use programmatic skins, you edit an ActionScript or MXML file. You can use a single class to define multiple skins.
Stateful skins: A type of programmatic skin that uses view states, where each view state corresponds to a state of the component.The definition of the view state controls the look of the skin. Since you can have multiple view states in a component, you can use a single component to define multiple skins.