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Rating: 
Summary: Shhhhhhhh! Keep this book secret just for yourself!
Review: Don't tell a soul what Jack and Linnea have done! With only 58 pages, hopefully most Photoshop and Photoshop Elements users will skip this book and move on to one of the more expensive and extensively promoted Adobe books. But between you and me, what's on the CD totally eliminates the need for those books. This one doesn't swamp you with a lot of text and redundancy -- it can't. What it does do is give you pre-configured "Layer Styles" to instantly produce stunning results the others hope to teach you with a few hundred or thousand words. For instance: you can buy one of those "Killer Tips" books to try and figure out how to do the trendy plastic "Gel" effect, or agonize over the Mac Design tutorial page after page, feeling more like road kill than a killer tips -- or, unwrap "One Click WOW" the second it arrives -- forget about reading -- pop in the CD, instal, open a new file, load "Plastic" styles and select #16 and presto -- big, beautiful Gel type! And you did it faster than it took you to read this review! Or Chrome or mud, or rust, or neon, or brick or glass or diamonds or brass or ice or crystal or ... well, you get the picture. I knocked out a header for a user group web site -- nailed the new Clear button look -- and it took all of ten seconds flat. There are more than 300 excellent effects, each of which is fully modifiable and expandable to literally unlimited combinations. It sounds too good to be true -- but it really works. . Use these Layer Styles as they are, or modify to your desires. Elements users will LOVE the recipes... but don't stop there: vignettes, frames, borders, tints, textures, patterns, grains and darkroom effects are a click away eliminating the need to read a single word of someone else's idea of cool. For years Jack and Linnea have WOWed us with their classic WOW books... but this one? Well, this one just takes the cake. But, you really shouldn't tell any one. You're gonna want to keep this one all to yourself. April Editor's Choice in the Design & Publishing Center and Design-Bookshelf.com
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Summary: Adobe Elements Has The Power Of The Big Boys...
Review: I bought Elements with my wacom graffire 2. The OTHER painter program that came was no longer supported, (painter classic)and I had been shopping for an intracate paint program for my digital arts. I also have Paint shop pro7. I found Elements to be very close to fluff as PSP7. it can do anything I can do...and then some...It is certinly not a Jr. program by any measure.
Elements has tons of brushes, all the effects you could ever put to use, an animation studio, and many cool tricks that others don't. The only mere complaint I would render is with the blending tool...which is 'the' determining factor in so much of what I do..
The panoramic picture wizzard would have to be my favorite wizard in this program. I say this is a must have...and the price is an even better asset. I would have paid "more money" for it and felt I was getting a deal.
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Summary: Very Useful
Review: I have used the Photoshop Wow styles in making quite a few
of the things on my website.
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Summary: It's a MUST
Review: This CD and reference are excellent. What can I add to Fred Showkers review, except to add my voice :-) This is a quick way to produce very professional looking effects. No tacky designs here and anyone can do it. The book does however break down how some of the effects were made so you can make your own if you so desire. It also teaches you how to edit the effects if you want to. The CD is usable for any level of user of Photoshop Elements or even in Photoshop. It's worth far more than the asking price.
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Summary: "BEST BOOK" Award for 2002
Review: We at the Designer's Bookshelf have just awarded this book a "BEST BOOK" award for 2002. These awards are given by the editors and staff at the Design Bookshelf, DT&G Magazine, and the Graphic Design network as top choices for all those involved in the design, publishing and visual arts fields.
Rating:
Summary: "BEST BOOK" Award for 2002
Review: We at the Designer's Bookshelf have just awarded this book a "BEST BOOK" award for 2002. These awards are given by the editors and staff at the Design Bookshelf, DT&G Magazine, and the Graphic Design network as top choices for all those involved in the design, publishing and visual arts fields.
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Summary: Buy more for the software than the book
Review: When I got this book with Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, I found three surprises: -- The book refers to Photoshop Elements 1.0, while the current version being sold is 2.0; -- The explanatory text is for, and all the screenshots are from, the Apple Macintosh; -- The book is a very slender 58 pages ... and the text really ends on page 19! That said, there's a lot here to like. Adobe Photoshop Elements One Click Wow! (do I really have to write the whole title again?) is not a manual; Adobe Photoshop Elements comes with a very nice printed manual that's over 250 pages long. Instead, it's a collection of slick styles you can apply to your images and layers to create some very cool effects. These layer styles are on the enclosed CD-ROM, and *that* is what you're spending your money on. Dispensing with the tutorials in about 20 clear, information packed pages, the rest of the book is your 'catalog' of the styles and effects that One-Click Wow! includes. As a sample, here is the list from the table of contents, under "Graphic & Type Effects:" Chromes
Metals
Glass, Ice & Crystal
Gems & Smooth Stones
Plastics
Polished & Textured Woods
Rock, Brick & Other Textures
Weaves & Patterns
Strokes, Fills & Shadows
Glows, Neon & Halos In short, the software is a huge toolkit of great-looking textures, gradients, effects and styles to improve the look of your photographs or graphic art from within Adobe Photoshop Elements. A cynic might suggest that One-Click Wow! is really software being sold as a book, and as so, perhaps not worth the price-tag. However, the book is nicely printed on heavy-stock paper, the tutorial chapters are good, and 38 pages of 'catalog' really are more useful than the tiny thumbnails that show up in Photoshop Element menus. In summary, I recommend this book and it's disc to anyone wishing to learn more about, and get more out of, Adobe Photoshop Elements.
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