photoshop to imageready to dreamweaver... and again!

[spindlelegs]

hey all

been designing websites quite a while now. as a work-flow thing i usually ps the page as it would appear online, get the client sign off, then flatten the layers and bring it into imageready to slice up. this is because i can zoom in and out while and build my table accurately.

i then optimise and create the 'html with images' in imageready only to open it up in dreamweaver, replace all spacer.gifs with a universal 'spacer.gif' file to save on download time (labouriously boring!), apply all rollovers, lib items and background colours, etc and then re-save the file as a dw file with all broken links intact.

this has proved the most accurate, the most efficient regarding download times and the the only way i see possible. problem is, any change or update and i have to make and i have to all the way to ps and start the whole process again... dooh!

is this the way website front-end developers all work or is there an alternative? pls don't mention fireworks!

y'all thoughts?

[korkus2000]

Pretty much. You shouldn't have to go through the entire process again though. Once you set up your splice guides in photoshop, you should be able to use just that section and save it without the need for image ready.

If you look in the options of image ready, some of the things like spacer gifs and other unwanted problems can be turned off when you export to html.

[Ducati]

Spindle,

The process you just described the exact same way that I design sites. The only problem that I have run into deals with DW templates. In ImageReady, when you "Save Optimized As..", an images folder is auto-created in the directory you save the html file. When you want to make a template in DW, it must go in a folder named templates at the root of the site (very annoying). Therefore you need to copy the image folder over to subfolders that pertain to this template. The alternative is to go into the code and adjust all image references by adding "/blah/" to correctly format the path. I'm looking for a way around this as we speak.

[GaryK]

When you Save Optimized As I think there is a drop-down list labeled "Settings." If you select Other... from the list a new dialog pops up and from there you can set the default folder your images are saved to. You can also define different preferences for different websites and save them for future use. Hope that helps.

[stever]

OK, I won't mention the F-word.

But no, that's absolutely not my workflow.

I'm OK with you up to client has agreed on design.

Once that has happened: Look at design and think about what will work and how page can be constructed to make it as light and fast-rendering as possible; what SEO implications there are in design; use of divs vs tables; is javascript necessary to make it work; etc, etc.

Then construct HTML, look at where images can be used as repeating backgrounds, only now go back to graphics programme to slice it up in the way that makes sense for the design, and then exporting the slices individually with their proper (SE-friendly?) filenames.

A sliced-up design with the slices overlaid quite often looks like small chunks have been taken out of it.

Of course, if I want to make any changes to the slices, I can make the changes from within DW if I am using the-graphics-programme-that-shall-not-be-named...