Many Photoshop Elements 2 (PSE2) users know that there is such a thing called Layer Styles, a palette that allows one to apply many quick effects. These include such effects as Wow Plastic and Molten Gold, shown in figure 1 (shown applied to a white rounded rectangle). The resulting effect can be tweaked by changing such things as light direction and size of effect. One-Click Wow! is a resource disc that not only contains Layer Styles that can be loaded into PSE2, but also contains additional brushes, patterns, textures and gradients. Wow!

Simply place the CD-ROM included with this book in the CD tray, and open a window to show its contents. Next open a window to show the following location on your hard drive (if you installed PSE2 in the default location) C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 2\Presets. On a Mac it might look like: Macintosh HD:Applications:Adobe Photoshop Elements 2:Presets. Copy the contents of the folder called PSE2-OCWow_Presets (from the CD-ROM) to the Presets folder on your hard drive.

If PSE2 is open while the files are being copied, restart the program. When Photoshop is launched next, twenty new categories of styles will be present in the Layer Styles palette, in addition to many other goodies. These include a set of over 150 different seamless Wow Patterns, organized into 6 different libraries and forty Gradient presets you can use in Gradient Fill layers, or with the Gradient tool, to make backgrounds or multicolor tints.

With just under 90 pages, he book is seemingly thin for the price. Once the book is opened, it becomes clear that it is largely a gallery of the various effects that can be generated with effects from the CD-ROM. This book does not cover how to use PSE, there is no shortage of books on that topic. Tutorial files are included with One-Click Wow! as are nearly twenty pages of instructions on how to use the effects included on the CD-ROM. Photoshop Elements 1 users will also benefit from this book, but not from the brushes; a new brush engine was added in version 2 making these brushes incompatible with PSE1. It’s well worth the price, and having a catalogue of effects is a nice way to shop around for the right look. I was impressed by the effects in figure 2, from left to right Wow Wood 15, Wow Rock 17, Wow Organics 5 and Wow Stroke 3.