Adobe Photoshop 7 One Click Wow! (Visual QuickStart Guides) [Paperback]

Well, on many projects, especially building advertisements, I'm always craving for something that can run on the latest Photoshop. Also, to save me time in making the ads. That's why there are downloadable actions that help speed that time up BUT unfortunately, I don't have the time to jump around websites and look for certain actions, styles, gradients, etc. If I need to create a marble background, a plastic, glass icon, etc. I would have to do it manually and it does take time.

With "Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow!", this book/CD has eliminated that extra time in creating backgrounds, gradients or special effects. Also, you would save a lot of money compared to software plug-ins that would cost you close to a hundred bucks, you're saving a lot of money with this book/CD. The CD comes with over 800 one click makeovers for brushes, tool presets, patterns, gradients, actions and rollovers.

Sure, for some purists, it's fun to challenge oneself to seeing how quickly you can do an effect but if you are a designer who has to deal with many deadlines and multiple projects, you need to eliminate as much time from creating these effects, so you can get some good night's sleep (sleep, what sleep?) or that extra hour to go to lunch or dinner.

Pretty much install the WOW! Folders to the corresponding Photoshop folders and append them and it's all one click which you can adjust frame sizes and more.

Jack Davis & Linnea Dayton have provided us with an awesome tool for designers. Beginner or advanced, this is definitely worth checking out!

One Click WOW works on the Layer Styles in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. So you just install and you're ready to go. You really don't have to read anything, but I suggest reading the part where it explains resolution (all theirs are done at 225 ppi) and how to get the best results, how to scale their presets, etc.

The book contains what seems like a zillion (technical term) sample images of the various styles, presets, patterns and brushes, gradient effects, photo effects... vignettes, frames, borders, tints, color effects, textures, patterns, grains and even various darkroom effects

You can set some text or create a simple grayscale image, then click on one of their presets, and voila! You instantly have results that might have taken hours.

They also give you presets to change the look of photos, like adding film grain, and, near the back, Jack includes a little tutorial on his amazing technique to turn your photos into paintings (using the brush presets on the CD).

Review by: Wynne Stevens

One Click Wow is one of those books we struggling want-to-be computer artists see in bookstores and fall in love with at first sight. The accompanying CD alone contains a smorgasbord of Photoshop styles, actions, and other effects that can make anyone look good with virtually no effort at all. Obviously true artists and Photoshop experts may look upon this with some disdain but there's no denying that One Click Wow exemplifies software automation and productivity to the delight of the unskilled such as myself.

This book contains the tools to take a simple graphic and convert it to chiseled steel, chrome, plastic, glass, neon, wood grain, and on and on. Want a frame or special edge treatment for that photograph? How about textures, edges or photo enhancements? Need some dynamic rollovers? No problem.

The authors present the various included effects with a simple clarity that makes it possible to start experimenting immediately. Once hooked, the process is addictive and a truly great way to explore the incredibly vast range of image effects that are possible with Photoshop.

The main focus of the book is on Photoshop layer styles, various effects that can be applied or unapplied to individual or groups of layers within an image file. It starts with brief introduction describing concept and customizing in terms easily grasped by any novice. The reader is encouraged to load the styles and begin experimenting immediately and there is a tutorial for the timid.

In the course of observing how each style (and there are literally hundreds) is constructed, and how components (opacity, pattern, shadow, stroke, texture, et. al.) are mixed, one really begins to understand the power of layer styles. Through experimentation, the book's styles can be altered and re-saved to suit any individual preference. This is where the real value lies -- one has both a vast library of new presets and the means to customize based on individual needs.

But wait, there's more! There are tons of other presets, including over 60 actions, 40 gradients, and 150 seamless patterns with full color examples of how each is rendered on a simple graphic. It's a lot of fun and a great education for those of us who are unsophisticated in the many ways an image can be manipulated. The CD alone is worth thirty bucks -- the fact that there are 90 pages of text and color examples is a bonus.

I recommend this book highly, especially to novices, as an excellent introduction to the power of Photoshop in image enhancement. Many of us have the program and don't really know all it can do. Spend a day with this book and you'll have a new appreciation. Definitely:

MacMice Rating: 5 out of 5

Author Jack Davis tells Book Bytes:

I want to emphasize the Wow Art Media Brush Presets and the Wow Image Fix Brush Presets -- over 70 of the most mind-bogglingly useful brushes (and associated paper and canvas textures) for thoroughly exploiting the capabilities of Photoshop 7's new Brush Engine. Those topics start on page 78 of the book.

Users of Adobe Photoshop Elements can participate in the Wow revolution by purchasing and using a companion book, entitled:

Adobe Photoshop Elements One-Click Wow!
by Jack Davis and Linnea Dayton
Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-10847-7, 58 pages plus companion CD loaded with images and tools

* If readers are using Photoshop 6, they won't be able to take advantage of the new Tool Presets on the Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow CD, but this would still be the book of choice because of the greater number of Styles.

* If they are using Photoshop Elements, the Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow still offers more Styles, but the Elements One-Click Wow tells how to use Styles with Elements, which is a little different process than using them with the full Photoshop.

In both cases, the printed book includes examples of all the Styles and tells how to use all the goodies supplied on the CD-ROM, including the tutorial files.

Here are the differences in more detail:

Adobe Photoshop Elements One-Click Wow! - which was the first one in this series - has more than 300 Layer Styles (instant stunning, practical effects for photos, type, or graphics) that can be used with Elements or Photoshop 6 or 7. It also has Recipes, which are exclusive to Elements (since Adobe has changed the way Recipes work in version 2 and the Wow Recipes were designed for version 1, the Recipes on our CD don't work with Elements 2).

Adobe Photoshop 7 One-Click Wow! has more Layer Styles - about 250 for type and graphics and more than 75 for photos, all of which can be used with Photoshop 7 or 6 or with Elements. It also has 150 custom button styles for use in Photoshop 6 or 7 or ImageReady; in addition, there are 50 combined Rollover Styles, already automated for use in ImageReady. Besides more Styles, the other major difference about this book/CD package is that it takes advantage of Photoshop 7's support for custom Tool Presets. For instance, it has more than 60 custom art-media tools for turning photos into watercolors, oils, pastels, and other media. It also has photo-retouching presets: dodge-and-burn brushes, red-eye fixers, teeth-and-eye whiteners, and skin redness removers. There are also presets for the most-often-used cropping dimensions, more than 40 Wow Gradients, and over 150 custom seamlessly tiling Patterns and Textures. There are also Wow Actions for elaborate special effects and for common image-fixing and production tasks. (The Tool Presets and many of the Actions are specific to Photoshop 7 only, and won't work with Photoshop 6 or Elements.

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Wynne Stevens