Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Web Design

The book starts out with the basics of using Adobe tools to create the most important elements of a Web site. Then it demonstrates how to use the newest features, including image compression, creating GIF animations, building dynamic Web content, designing navigational elements, managing Web-safe colors and more.

Contents

• HTML Basics 20
• The HTML Source Code of a Page 22
• The Design Limitations of Structural Coding 24
• The Design Limitations of Earlier Browsers 26
• HTML Design Limitation: Absolute Positioning 26
• WYSIWYG Authoring Applications 27
• Photos and Graphics on the Web 29
• The Transfer Speed for Different Modem Connections 30
• How Do Browsers Compensate for Missing Colors? 33
• Adobe LiveMotion 36
• Color Problems with Images 39
• Other important Technologies for Web Design 41
• QuickTime VR 42
• Some Useful Sites for Web Designers 49
• Developing a Design Concept for a Web Site 52
• Information Architecture 52
• Interview with Tom Nicholson 58
• Design Concepts 65
• Navigational Techniques and Interface Design 70
• Interview with Andreas Lindstrom 72
• Optimizing the Color Picker 100
• Photoshop's Interpolation Methods 102
• Using the Right Interpolation Method 103
• Rulers in Pixels 104
• Guides and Grids 104
• Loading the Web-Safe Color Palette 104
• Gamma 105
• The Info Palette 106
• The Actions Palette 107
• The Color Cube 114
• Color Depth 114
• Web-Safe Color Palette 115
• The Web-Safe Color Palette Seen as a Cube 116
• The Web-Safe Color Cube Shown in Slices 117
• The Unwrapped Color Cube 120
• Working with Web-Safe Colors 126
• How Large Should Your Canvas Be? 132
• Working with the Layers Palette 133
• The Layers Palette: Opacity and Layer Modes 135
• Changing Colors 141
• Correcting Colors 145
• Avoiding Halos 149
• Vector Graphics: Using Illustrator with Photoshop 150
• Fixing Digital Camera Photographs 152
• Optimizing Images 156
• Removing Dust and Scratches 157
• Correcting Images with Levels 159
• Changing the Images Size 160
• Tutorial: Creating a Photocomposition 162
• Creating Backgrounds 166
• Creating Backgrounds with a Vector Graphics Application 174
• Alien Skin EyeCandy 4000 177
• Designing Text 178
• Designing Buttons 179
• Alien Skin Xenofex 181
• Totorial: Developing a Web Site in Photoshop 182
• Photoshop vs. ImageReady 188
• The Most Common Mistake 189
• Creating Rollover Buttons 190
• Creating Image Maps 193
• Optimizing Images 195
• Totorial: Creating Slices and Rollovers 197
• Basic Principles 202
• Looping an Animation 205
• Saving on Bandwidth by Scaling Animations 205
• Disposal Methods 206
• Creating Animated Computer Tutorials 208
• Optimizing Animations 208
• The Zero-Second Trick 209
• Tutorial: Rotating a Logo 211
• How Does GIF Compress? 214
• Balancing Compression with Quality 216
• LZW Pattern Recognition 218
• The GIF Comparison Table 222
• Dithering Comparison Chart 226
• The Lossy Option 228
• Creating GIFs 230
• Optimizing a CLUT 239
• The Art of Optimizing GIFs 240
• Creating Custom (Master) Palettes 244
• Weighted Optimization 247
• Applying Lossy to Part of an Image 247
• Dithering Part of an Image 248
• Creating Effective Alpha Channels 250
• Simulating Multiple Levels of Transparency 252
• How Well Does JPEG Compress Images? 257
• The Correlation of Compression and 8x8-Pixel Blocks 259
• JPEG or GIF? 260
• How a JPEG Is Encoded 262
• Quality Differences Among JPEG Decoders 264
• Improving Compression with Blurring 264
• JPEG Comparison Charts 266
• Optimizing Savings through an Alpha Channel 269
• Saving PNG Images with Save For Web 273
• Comparing PNG, GIF, and JPEG File Sizes 275
• Stationary and Components 280
• Creating HTML Tables 282
• Using Backgrounds in Tables and Grids 286
• Image Inflation 288
• Aligning Foreground with Background 291
• Working with Text 292
• Using Dynamic Fonts 299
• Optimizing the Workflow between GoLive and Photoshop 300
• Tutorial: HTML Authoring 304
• Capturing Formats 318
• Creating a Two-Frame Poster Movie in QuickTime Player Pro 318
• Compressing and Embedding Movies for the Web 321
• Music and Audio