best program for web design for images

[jerry_diakiw]

What is a good progrm `for a beginner to create a website with photo

web pages. Can I do it in pscs?

or is ther ea better way to do it ?

jerry

[pjmeade]

Have a look at Macromedia Fireworks. It's a web design tool and can provide you with the facility to produce all your web graphics including jpg, gif, png and even swf. You can tailor your jpg and gif settings to optemise for dowload times. You can also get creative with the drawing packages.

 

I have used it in its various forms for web work for the last 5-6 years.

 

What it will not do is colour corrections, you would still need some adobe product for that.

[john_flavell]

I've also been looking for a software package for web pages.

 

In a past thread everyone seems to love Dreamweaver 4 as a simple and easy to learn

package. Can we buy Dreamweaver 4 by itself, or do we now need to go for the MX

version?

 

Thanks for taking on the added question.

[perfect_exposure]

You can create a simple photo web page in a few minutes in PSCS.

From the main menu select File/Automate/Web Photo Gallery

 

chose which template you want, where your images are and where you want to put the created html and image files. It just takes few minutes.

 

On the other hand you could spend a lot of money and time creating a really good web page from dreamweaver but be prepared for a huge learning curve. Nothing very difficult but an awful lot of it before you know the basics.

[dean_matsueda]

<p>There's also some nice, free Flash-based galleries if you<br>

* like Flash galleries<br>

* don't mind doing a little geek-ery to get them to work</p>

<p>

This one is pretty nice and fairly simple to add images:<br>

<a href="http://www.airtightinteractive.com/simpleviewer/"

target="_blank">SimpleViewer</a></p>

<p>

There's a low- and high-bandwidth demo plus instructions to get a sense of how

deep-in-geek you have to go.</p>

<p>

Dreamweaver is nice in that one component of it is a WYSIWYG editor. Drop in images,

type in text, move stuff around and it'll output the HTML code for you. I would recommend

getting the latest version as it does a <strong>much</strong> better job of outputting

clean HTML code. Earlier versions would pollute your pages with extraneous, mis-nested,

mal-formed code. Web pages would look fine, but under the hood it was pretty nasty

stuff.</p>

<p>

And lastly, you <em>could</em> use Microsoft Word as a last resort. It too, like the old

versions of Dreamweaver, outputs some nasty HTML code but... it works. As a

professional web developer and designer, I could get my "union card" torn-up for

suggesting

this but if that's the only option you have, it's more important to get your stuff up on the

web than to argue about nice, clean, non-proprietary code. Just know that your pages may

or may not look the same in non-Microsoft browsers or on Macs. Just save your document

as an HTML file (the option is in the pull-down menu in the "Save As..." dialogue box.</p>

<p>

Oh, one more option is <a href="http://www.flickr.com" target="_blank">flickr</a>. It's

all the rage in the blogger community now and it's super easy to upload your image files

for everyone to see.</p>

<p>

Hope that helps!<br>

..dean</p>

[pjmeade]

To find out about Fireworks an Dreamweaver, go to the www.macromedia.com website. They have tryout versions of most of their products. Dreamweaver may be a bit of overkill for simple sites, but it's an industry standard.

[keith_laban]

<a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">Keith Laban Photography</a><p>WARNING! Blatant advertising to follow.<p>You could always try <a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/websitedesign.html">THIS</a> ;-)

[brainbubba_motornapkins]

Keith,

 

All centered, all the time text is difficult to read. Trust me on this ;-)

[keith_laban]

<a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">Keith Laban Photography</a><p>Sorry Brainbubba, it's the designer in me, I just can't help myself ;-)

[john_flavell]

Actually, Front Page would be perfect. I just can't find it for Mac. I can't even find it

unbundled these days for XP. The world of web building just isn't going to be simple

anymore.

 

Keith, I didn't mind the adverstising, it looks good.

[root]

Mac, you say!

 

I'm pretty close to buying Freeway Express. Check out softpress.com

[john_flavell]

Thanks for the all the replies. Send more if you want. I played around with Freeway

Express demo for a couple of days and I think that'll be the way to go. Simple. And only

$99.

[keith_laban]

<a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">Keith Laban Photography</a><p>John, Carl.<p>I've had a quick look at softpress.com and Freeway Express. The impression I get is that it's rather like taking a picture with an auto everything camera, you end up with a picture of something without understanding anything.

[root]

Staying with your analogy, you still get to compose the picture and if there are no difficult exposure or DOF problems, you've got all the information you need. I don't know how much tweaking is possible with that program, but the examples given suggest that a lot of different ideas are possible.

[keith_laban]

<a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">Keith Laban Photography</a><p><i>"In a past thread everyone seems to love Dreamweaver 4 as a simple and easy to learn package. Can we buy Dreamweaver 4 by itself, or do we now need to go for the MX version"</i><p>John, although Dreamweaver 4 has been replaced by MX it was the industry standard software for many years and has probably been used to design and build more websites than all the other software packages put together. It should now be possible to pick up copies of Dreamweaver 4 on the Internet at bargain basement prices. I wouldn't really describe it as <i>"simple and easy to learn"</i>, but rather as rewarding and above all else great fun! Believe me, I had absolutely no idea how to build a website or even what HTML was before I got Dreamweaver and I have to admit I'm not by nature a keen learner, but I instantly warmed to the program and was productive within days.

[brainbubba_motornapkins]

Sorry Keith,

 

A designer would not use that for an excuse.

 

;-)

[rds801]

I will agree with Dean and say simpleviewer. I just started playing with it and I think I am going to use that for my gallerys. Also take a look at the <a href="http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/postcardviewer/example/">postcard viewer<a/>.