TOP tools that speed up mini-site graphic design

8 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
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What are the TOP tools that speed up mini-site graphic design or help you create better graphics with less effort? These tools do NOT necessarily need to be free.
#design #graphic #minisite #speed #tools #top
  • Profile picture of the author fragin_bastich
    photoshop and/or illustrator (I like both)...not much else needed
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  • Profile picture of the author spearce000
    Photoshop or Serif PhotoPlus. eCover software or action script.
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  • What you want is photoshop and image ready, although image ready is handled a bit differently in cs3

    Make your layout in photoshop and then set up all your slices with image ready and poof, it will generate all the html and images you need to start setting your site up.

    You'll need to tweak a few things but thats what it takes. To speed up the photoshop process you can begin with another template and modify it a bit. Just take a screenshot of a page you like and set it as the background and work on top of it.

    Great artists steal
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  • Profile picture of the author smd_vivek
    Try Fireworks it is awsome...
    You can create and edit vector and bitmap on same canvas-same environment.
    For slicing you don't have to switch to any other platform.
    You can create animated gifs
    You can export HTML after slicing
    And lot of other dynamic features you can add
    Pretty amazing for creating graphics for web platform.

    Best of Luck
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  • Profile picture of the author JackTheLad
    I'd go with the majority, and say Photoshop & a few actionscripts for things like ebook covers and reports. (eCoverSuiteElite is great for that stuff)

    Although, if you're not entirely sure you want to spend a bunch of cash on Photoshop - I reccommend trying out "The Gimp". It's free and open-source. This is a great piece of software for creating header graphics etc. If you're on a budget!
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  • Profile picture of the author e-mail2u
    The one thing that will speed this up is RAM, when doing graphics you need RAM. If you have under 1gig of ram your computer will be slow 1gig and above and you will be able to run pretty smoothly.

    PhotoShops basic requirements require at least 1 gig or ram. The more you have the faster the software runs.
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    • Profile picture of the author JamesFraze
      For the "cheap" route, there is also "Gimp", which is a free, open source clone of photoshop. Photoshop is better, but it's also out of the price range of people who are not willing to blow $400 for their software.

      Once you succeed, you should upgrade to the tools others are recommending, just thought I'd throw this out for a free alternative that is very nice:

      GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
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  • Profile picture of the author KathyK
    Easy thumbnails is a real handy little program for resizing images in batches. Great if you take your own pictures.

    And it's free. No adware, spyware or nagware either. Can be found here. The company also makes Note Tab - a program popular among some of us who like to do our html and CSS in text rather than wysiwyg. :p

    Oh - and you can resize to any size - not just tiny...
    Signature

    Cheers,
    Kathy

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