What programs to use for web development.

musiccompguy RemoveThis @hotmail.com wrote:

> mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
> use.

If you need Photoshop quality, you often can't get around of buying it. If
you're working as a web designer consider it an investment, like the
computer, monitor, etc. you buy. If it's too expensive, you might
reconsider your own rates.

"Alternative" often means that you have to jump through a lot of hoops. I
often see the GIMP mentioned as an alternative, but from what I've read so
far on several points it doesn't even come close. A closer alternative
seems to be Pixel, which is not free though.

> Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?

Xara makes software that helps making those. No idea how good they are
accessibility wise, etc.

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 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

wrote

> I am a recent graduate from college, and I am considering going into
> web design, I am already familiar with dreamweaver and other editors.
> However much of which you see with the naked eye on a web page is
> mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
> use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?
>
> All replies are and will be greatly appreciated.

I would start with text, and only add to it if you need to.

Write your own HTML for this.

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 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

SpaceGirl wrote:
> musiccompguy.RemoveThis@hotmail.com wrote:
> > I am a recent graduate from college, and I am considering going into
> > web design, I am already familiar with dreamweaver and other editors.
> > However much of which you see with the naked eye on a web page is
> > mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
> > imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
> > use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> > as menu bars, menu buttons etc?
> >
> > All replies are and will be greatly appreciated.
> >
>
> If you're serious about it, there's no alternative to PhotoShop really.
> There is a good reason it's the defacto standard.
>

Hmmm, I think it depends on what you want to do, as an example most
graphics programs will allow you to reduce the size of images an
manipulate them in various ways, but for actual graphic design (which
strictly speeking) is only one part of web development then yes,
Photoshop might be a good tool to use.

> "Web Elements"... you mean form controls?
>
>
Hmm, no I think he means items such as navigation etc, where plain text
links are the easiest thing to use, styled useing CSS to "look" like
buttons.
Failing that, you could use 1KB Gifs, with proper alt text (for
accessibility) which is why plain old text links work better (it saves
a lot of work).
Unless you need a specific font in which case placeing the text in a
graphic (with alt text for those UA's that don't support graphics)
might be the exception.
--
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 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

musiccompguy.RemoveThis@hotmail.com wrote:
> I am a recent graduate from college, and I am considering going into
> web design, I am already familiar with dreamweaver and other editors.
> However much of which you see with the naked eye on a web page is
> mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
> use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?
>
> All replies are and will be greatly appreciated.
>

If you're serious about it, there's no alternative to PhotoShop really.
There is a good reason it's the defacto standard.

"Web Elements"... you mean form controls?


--


x theSpaceGirl (miranda)

# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
# this post (c) Miranda Thomas 2006
# explicitly no permission given to Forum4Designers
# to duplicate this post.
 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

musiccompguy.DeleteThis@hotmail.com wrote:
> I am a recent graduate from college, and I am considering going into
> web design, I am already familiar with dreamweaver and other editors.
> However much of which you see with the naked eye on a web page is
> mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
> use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?
>
> All replies are and will be greatly appreciated.

Forget all dreamweaver/frontpage/etc.. if you like to publish
professional sites use simple txt editors, like notepad++ (
notepad-plus.sourceforge.net )

You can use any photoprogramme you like, there are plenty of them
available.
 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

> "Alternative" often means that you have to jump through a lot of hoops. I
> often see the GIMP mentioned as an alternative, but from what I've read so
> far on several points it doesn't even come close. A closer alternative
> seems to be Pixel, which is not free though.

Gimp is certainly not for publication quality printouts on a printer, but
I find it completely sufficient for any graphics on web pages, which is
what it is really designed for. Is there anything specific that makes you
think it won't do? I find it actually easier to use than Photoshop.
 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

mbstevens <NOXwebmasterx.DeleteThis@xmbstevensx.com> wrote:

>
>> "Alternative" often means that you have to jump through a lot of
>> hoops. I often see the GIMP mentioned as an alternative, but from
>> what I've read so far on several points it doesn't even come close. A
>> closer alternative seems to be Pixel, which is not free though.
>
> Gimp is certainly not for publication quality printouts on a printer,
> but I find it completely sufficient for any graphics on web pages,

Yup, as usual, YMMV.

> which is what it is really designed for.

Didn't know that the Gimp was /designed/ for web graphics though.

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 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

John Bokma wrote:

> Didn't know that the Gimp was /designed/ for web graphics though.

It's not. It's a general purpose photo and raster image manipulation tool.
(It can import several vector-based image formats, but you must work on
them and save them as raster images.)

It's not suitable for professional print jobs because these usually need
to be sent to the press in CYMK format, which the GIMP doesn't handle well
(it's optimised very much towards RGB format).

Ultimately, the GIMP can create any effect that Photoshop can, as
ultimately it's all down to tweaking each individual pixel to a specific
colour.

Photoshop has provides certain tools that make certain manipulations
faster; the GIMP can still do said manipulations, but it may involve
many more steps to get to the end result. Conversely, the GIMP provides
certain tools that make certain manipulations faster; Photoshop can still
do said manipulations, but it may involve many more steps to get to the
end result.

Ultimately, as you use a package more and more, you get a better feel for
what its tools can do, so you'll be able to work faster in that than other
packages.

When choosing a graphics package to use, look at the tools it provides --
will they be useful for the sort of things you do. If one provides 15
types of blur and 2 types of paint brush, but the other provides 15 types
of paint brush, but only two types of blur, think about whether you're
more likely to be doing a lot of free-hand painting, or whether you'll be
taking geometric objects and giving them a bit of soft focus.

Also to consider are price, availability of free and paid support,
availability ofg books and online tutorials, and so forth.

--
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Contact Me ~ http://tobyinkster.co.uk/contact
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"Oreste" <oreste RemoveThis @parlatano.com> wrote in message
news:1166967834.605326.175090@a3g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> musiccompguy RemoveThis @hotmail.com wrote:
>> I am a recent graduate from college, and I am considering going into
>> web design, I am already familiar with dreamweaver and other editors.
>> However much of which you see with the naked eye on a web page is
>> mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
>> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
>> use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
>> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?
>>
>> All replies are and will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Forget all dreamweaver/frontpage/etc.. if you like to publish
> professional sites use simple txt editors, like notepad++ (
> notepad-plus.sourceforge.net )
>
> You can use any photoprogramme you like, there are plenty of them
> available.
>
This makes perfect sense. After all, it's OK to use Paint Shop Pro or
Photoshop for graphics, Word to write documents, Excel to make spreadsheets,
but you will be branded with the mark of Cain if you use an equivalent
time-saving productivity tool such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage to write HTML
code. Don't be confused. This has nothing to do with logic. It's a matter of
religion, or testosterone. Real men code with Notepad. It may take weeks for
you to learn enough HTML and CSS to create your first simple page, and
writing a page in Notepad may take several hours more than jotting out the
same page with DW or FP. But you could save 5 kilobytes per page. That
translates into significant fractions of a second per user. If your blog or
hobby site gets 12 million visitors a day, the bloated DW or FP code would
mean you'd wind up paying more for bandwidth. So it's the most practical
option. Plus, women will tremble with desire and grow weak in the knees when
they learn that you code by hand, and when you die, St. Peter will wave you
right through. Unfair to professionals who use tools, but that's the way it
is.
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 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

musiccompguy DeleteThis @hotmail.com wrote:

> what other
> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop

Photoshop. Now bend over.

Yes, there are plenty of others. PSP, Gimp or even Photoshop Elements
being the obvious ones. Hey, you can even use MS Paint
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rbSWGMKnkpo

However none of these are as good and in particular none of them will
get you past an interview that asks if you can use Potatoshop in your
sleep, blindfold. This isn't an ideal situation (the world needs a
better Gimp), but it's the reality of the job market.

OTOH, it's not _that_ expensive. If you were a taxi driver you'd expect
to have to pay for a car, wouldn't you? A full-time designer gets their
money's worth out of it.

> use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?

"Web developers" get them from "web designers" (rarely the same people,
if they're good).

"Web designers" make them from scratch, according to the precise
requirements of the site in question.

Web monkeys download them from somewhere, or fool themselves that using
Xara has any relation to good site design.

Good web developers often prefer not to use them at all, using HTML,
CSS and text instead. There's still a need for bitmap image furniture,
but if you think that web design is about blob-shaped menu buttons,
then you need to get out of 1997.
 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

musiccompguy.RemoveThis@hotmail.com wrote:
> I am a recent graduate from college, and I am considering going into
> web design, I am already familiar with dreamweaver and other editors.

Personally, I prefer a plain text editor. I work with JSP pages and,
due to the way the site started out, I have to weave in between a lot
of Java coding. The newer versions of Dreamweaver are supposed to be
able to handle that (can't say I've tried it) but I wouldn't trust
Front Page for anything.


> However much of which you see with the naked eye on a web page is
> mainly text and various pictures. My question therefore is what other
> imaging software is there expect for adobe photoshop (inexpensive) to
> use. Also, where does a web developer get access to web elements such
> as menu bars, menu buttons etc?
>
> All replies are and will be greatly appreciated.

As others have already stated, PhotoShop is the industry standard so
you're going to have to deal with it as some point or another. I
started out using Corel PhotoPaint a long time ago since I was able to
buy an older version Corel was blowing out because their new version
was coming out at the time and that gave me a good solid basis for
image manipulation. However, I ended up in a job that used PhotoShop
so I needed to learn it; fortunately, I had learned enough from the
Corel program that it became simply a matter of learning a new software
package. If PhotoShop is out of your price range and you need to learn
a bit about graphics, I suggest picking up one of the other programs
the others recommended. Sure, you won't know PhotoShop itself, but at
least you'll have a background in working with images and can learn
PhotoShop on the job as long as you aren't facing looming deadlines;
install the program you do know and switch back and forth as deadlines
demand until you can comfortably get your work done in PhotoShop.

Yes, $650 is a lot for someone just out of college to spend on a
software package but, if you want to get moving on it right away, think
of it as an investment in your future. PhotoShop has been the standard
for years and that doesn't appear to be changing any time soon.
 >> Stay informed about: What programs to use for web development. 

Alex wrote:
> "RichCI" <richci.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > As others have already stated, PhotoShop is the industry standard so
> > you're going to have to deal with it as some point or another. I
> > started out using Corel PhotoPaint a long time ago since I was able to
> > buy an older version Corel was blowing out because their new version
> > was coming out at the time and that gave me a good solid basis for
> > image manipulation. However, I ended up in a job that used PhotoShop
> > so I needed to learn it; fortunately, I had learned enough from the
> > Corel program that it became simply a matter of learning a new software
> > package. If PhotoShop is out of your price range and you need to learn
> > a bit about graphics, I suggest picking up one of the other programs
> > the others recommended. Sure, you won't know PhotoShop itself, but at
> > least you'll have a background in working with images and can learn
> > PhotoShop on the job as long as you aren't facing looming deadlines;
> > install the program you do know and switch back and forth as deadlines
> > demand until you can comfortably get your work done in PhotoShop.
> >
> > Yes, $650 is a lot for someone just out of college to spend on a
> > software package but, if you want to get moving on it right away, think
> > of it as an investment in your future. PhotoShop has been the standard
> > for years and that doesn't appear to be changing any time soon.
> >
> Photoshop is great, but it is aimed at the graphic arts professional, and
> has more features and complexity than you need for Web work. Paint Shop Pro,
> now in version 11, runs it a close second in power and capabilities, but is
> much cheaper and easier to use. Everything you learn using PSP will readily
> transfer to PhotoShop if you later decide to make the leap (and
> investment) -- layers, masking, etc. Stores like Fry's often "football"
> Paint Shop Pro at discounted prices plus a mail-in rebate, brilnging the
> final cost to under $40.
Yes, I tend to agree, although with the web being treated more and more
now a days like it's only a visual medium (I think I can understand )
why photoshop is being recomended more and more. It's also interesting
to note the amount of graphic designers offering web design services as
well.
Although those sites might look ok at particular screen resolutions
they tend to fall apart when simple things happen (like when you
increase text size), I think more needs to be done regarding teaching
people the limitations on the medium they are working with. In this
case it's web design, I mean while the web is farely flexible in what
you can do with it (some things) just don't work very well (like fixxed
widths, unless you have full control of what the user can view (like on
an intranet type situation (where the user can't install new software).
--
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