[Xenocide_Drone]

I'm just getting into Web design and about to take a course on it. My old websites used to be created via sitespinner in a very unorganized and half assed way. I've been studying alot of CSS but still need to grasp the concept, but I was wondering what the pros and cons are of creating your template in photoshop opposed to dreamweaver. Again, I'm very new to this (creating/designing the right way, and the most efficient). Could somebody give me a little advice on creating a template from scratch. Let's say I wanted to create a site like my old bands: adamsgod.com

I just wanna get ahead I suppose. Any advice would be greatfully appreciated.

Thanks.

[combat sheep]

are you blind ?

Illustrator or Photoshop?

[pgo]

That site is poorly built.

It has nothing to do with tools, but knowledge and skills. If you know (X)HTML and CSS and have good design sense, you'll be fine.

Start here.

[gkwinspired]

1.) First off - the graphics I think are good and capable to competing in todays market. But the reason why pgo states that "the site is poorly built" is because CSS has taken over older graphic design styles. You took your images that you created in Photoshop and probably used Image Ready to automatically slice them up. Then you just imported the html into Dreamweaver. That used to be my habit until I started worrying about code and accessibilty, which if you are learning CSS, is the very backbone of XHTML and CSS.

So what you do is you want to create a site completely without tables (unless you are posting tabular information). Go here for that.
Also you are going to want to use CSS to control all of your graphics, which at the moment you are using none. So use pgo's link to do that.

2.) To actually answer your question - I use both, mainly becasue you kinda have to, (well I guess you could use notepad). Anyways, I design my concept first and then manually lay the guides out so that I can just crop them down and save them. So if I was to do your site (the page once you enter) I would get rid of the graphical links, and I would be able to do your site with 3 images.

Sorry for the long essay - but I like your graphics and would love to see you curve your abilities in another direction.

--
Greg

[Xenocide_Drone]

Are you a tool, combat sheep? I had more than one question in my post.

[Xenocide_Drone]

Thanks for the response, gkwinspired. We had another designer do the page for us, but I was impressed with her work (obviously for someone who knows barely anything about web design). I appreciate the detailed response thought, I'll definately take your advice into consideration. I just figured you could make a design in photoshop and make it into a CSS. Back to work for me!

[pgo]

You CAN do just that, but you have to understand HTML and CSS and how they interact (and how to achieve different effects).

I usually comp things together in Photoshop before moving to HTML/CSS, but there's no good tool for making that transition. Sure, you could do the slice/export method that was used to make the above site, but that's really outdated. The only way to be competitive today is to do things the right way.

[skyrocket]

Originally Posted by Xenocide_Drone

I just figured you could make a design in photoshop and make it into a CSS.

yes photoshop is great for mocking up your design concept. that's what everyone uses around the world as the main web design tool of the trade (well, i think they do). the agencies i've worked at it's CS2 all the way. being politically correct some folks also use fireworks. just let your imagination run riot and let the design flow (man) - just go easy on the lens flare. the trick is then converting that groovy design concept into (x)html/css and getting it to work cross browser etc... that's something you can only get right with practice

[andyk]

Originally Posted by combat sheep

are you blind ?

Sorry but that's a very negative approach. Doesn't answer his question at all.

Now to your topic.

gkwinspired is very right. I myself use photoshop to design the template, save it all as a web format then put it in Dreamweaver. So im using best of both worlds. Some people may say thats longer but it seems very quick. Photoshop offers all the designy tools to make everything look pretty, then Dreamweaver formats everything...properly. Much better tables etc in Dreamweaver then Photoshop.

Just a note though. If you do decide to design in Photoshop, keep all your source files together/backed up. I've had alot of people who just chuck away their old work because they think it's worthless but people in the world have different tastes.

Im sure whatever decision you decide will be the right one

[wavereel]

yes, both. I use them both, photoshop is great for designing, but NEVER use the GUI in dreamweaver, the only acceptable GUI I've EVER found is in iweb for mac.

[MK3Design]

photoshop + notepad = all you need

Ive never once found dreamweaver usefull..

[gkwinspired]

Honestly, all I ever hear is negativity about Dreamweaver, and definately negativity about Frontpage. Now, I completely agree with the Frontpage negativity, but Dreamweaver far surpasses FP.

I say go for it, use Dreamweaver, I do. I just highly, highly recommend creating a stylesheet that contains every setting (classes for bold, right alignment, center, italic, etc) - so you don't end up using the graphics interface. But I love their templates, the design view is great for simple text edits, and the library is wonderful when you are working with 10 other employees and you need to keep track of the files. Also, using Contribute saves a lot of headaches that this board gets filled up with.

Sorry, just had to rant.

--
Greg

[Dusteh]

I mostly agree with that, except the templates are bugged and are worse than using standard includes.