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Web Design Layout


perryc

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Hello everyone, I was wondering what is the best program to layout a website with, photoshop, fireworks, ect... Im not really sure i figured there has to be a better way then creating div after div in dreamweaver or using one of their custom templates. Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

 

Cody Perry

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How do you do it though and get it into dreamweaver. Ive heard people use the slice tool or something but ive never used that, im very experienced in photoshop not so much in fireworks but have never used that tool in either.

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

 

 

Cody Perry

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Some people use the slice tool, but I find it very messy. I prefer to turn off the elements I don't need and crop/trim and save out the different sections from the psd file.

That's about the same as what I do. I don't really use the slice tool at all -- like Virtual says, it's just a matter of hiding any unnecessary layers and cropping out the images you need.

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When one looks at it technically speaking:

 

Photoshop is a tool for photographers and graphic designers. Later it had web tools added.

 

Fireworks was developed expressly as a web development tool. That gives it a leg up on Photoshop.

 

But PS's web tools are good and I used it for years, it is fine.

 

I however later chose to go with Fireworks being that is what it was meant to do.

 

For touching up Photographs and doing high end graphics PS is the best tool. That is what I used. But then I would import them into Fireworks for the rest of the work. There is no "right tool", only "right for you." Fireworks is the better tool for scalable graphics, PS is not that good and you would need Adobe Illustrator for the same type of work.

 

Fireworks is not as strong in the high end graphics, but does as I recall read PSD files. It also connects to Dreamweaver and Flash of course. Say you are building the site in DW, and you find a mistake in an image. With Photoshop you have to open it and modify it and close. With fireworks you can open the image right in DW and modify it without leaving the editor as it uses the FW engine. FW can do much the same with a Flash film.

 

As for layout, with Photoshop you have to make it and slice it etc. and everything is images. In FW you can designate an area as text and even add your text and the final HTML will be text and not an image. Same with designating a section as Flash. With FW you can create a web page directly from the layout, including rollovers and drop down navigation.

 

When all is said and done of course it is a machine and the code is not optimized, but for a quick customer example it is fine.

 

But if you already have Photoshop... you don't need to buy Fireworks. Your choice.

 

Disclaimer: I no longer do web development, my last PS was CS3 I believe. Now it is CS5 I believe? Also Adobe bought Macromedia about the time I quit. So take this info with a bit of salt. Owning all tools may mean that they greatly improved Photoshop with FW tools since I last used them and Photoshop may be better now.

 

Fireworks used to be cheaper too.

 

In the case of RIA's using Flex, I think it works better with Fireworks than Photoshop.

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Being a newbie - I use Photoshop CS4 and am very pleased with it. While I still need to learn it to improve my design aesthetics, I think it is the most popular graphics program out there.

 

For slicing - I have never sliced. I like Ben and Virtual, crop the images out. Basically turn off all elements except the ones you want to export - select Image - then Trim (or simply Crop the image). This is also extremely helpful when working with transparent PNG's.

Edited by NuCoder
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select Image - then Trim

 

I just learned something new! I've been cropping images, but it's not always exact and I get so frustrated when working with backgrounds. Maybe this will help me?? I've never noticed Trim before.....

 

Off to play with it! B)

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I just learned something new! I've been cropping images, but it's not always exact and I get so frustrated when working with backgrounds. Maybe this will help me?? I've never noticed Trim before.....

 

Off to play with it! B)

 

Hi Susie -

It is on CS4 - I do not know about previous versions. I hope this helps you with a new way to "Slice that PSD" :D

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