Choosing an Image Editor or Web Program
Roll your cursor over this image of the Adkins twins to see their faces.
Sorting through all the Web design and image editing programs available can be confusing. That's why we created this review to help you find the best program for your project (and budget).
In this review, you find descriptions of the most popular image editors and Web design programs, including Photoshop Photoshop Elements, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, GoLive, and Expression Web.
Comparing image editing programs
You’ll find many choices in the world of image editing programs, from high-end programs such as Adobe Photoshop (which retails for about $650) to simple programs that you can download for free over the Internet. Here’s a quick comparison of some of the most popular image editing programs.
Adobe Photoshop CS3: By far the most popular image editing program in the history of computer design, Photoshop CS3 is a powerful program that lets you create, edit, and manipulate images. This is a professional tool, with a professional price tag (about $650), so unless you have a big budget or you’re a serious photographer or designer, it’s probably more than you need (or will want to pay for).
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5: Shown in the figure below, Photoshop Elements 5 features many of the same powerful tools as Photoshop CS3 but it’s easier to use and only costs about $100. Elements provides more than enough power for almost anything you’d need to do on a Web site, including optimizing images so they download faster over the Internet. You find an introduction to Elements and instructions for creating and optimizing graphics for the Web in Chapter 4.
Adobe Fireworks CS3: This image design program has many special features for creating images that look great on the Web. With Fireworks you can create animated images and slideshows for your Web pages. You can also create images in Fireworks and use the special Slicing tool to cut the image into pieces before exporting it directly into a fully-functional Web page. Because Fireworks includes HTML features and is integrated with Dreamweaver, you can easily move back and forth between the two programs. If you’re a professional Web designer, or you’re creating lots of complex designs for the Web, this is a great tool to have on your hard drive.
Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements...
The difference between the two versions of Photoshop boils down to this: The expensive version is used by people like magazine editors and high-fashion photographers to do painstaking, exacting work on their photos, to make a flawless image suitable for viewing by millions and optimized for print. Given enough time, you can use Photoshop to make a mule look like a supermodel. For the rest of us, who just want to edit photos, or maybe make it look like Uncle Ernie’s basset hound was driving the lawnmower, Photoshop Elements 5 should be all you’ll ever need.
Comparing Web design programs
In the early days of the Web, many different visual HTML editors competed for attention. Today, only a few have survived and are in common use on the Web. Here's a quick review of the most popular options:
Adobe Dreamweaver CS3: By far the most popular choice among professional Web designers, this award-winning program offers high-end development tools, excellent design features, and great support for all of the latest in Internet technologies. Dreamweaver features a wide collection of customizable palettes, floating dialog boxes, and toolbars, which makes it look more like an image editor than a word processor. If you’re serious about Web design, this is the tool to use. That’s why I chose Dreamweaver to feature in this book. If you don’t have a copy of Dreamweaver yet, you can download a fully-functional 30-day trial version for free by visiting www.Adobe.com/dreamweaver.
Adobe Contribute CS3: Contribute is designed to make it easy for anyone to “contribute” to a Web site. This reasonably priced program is easy and intuitive to use, but it’s not a stand-alone program. Contribute is not designed to create Web sites, it’s designed to make it easy to update an existing site. You’ll need a program like Dreamweaver to complete a Web site from start to finish. Contribute is an ideal choice if you’re hiring a professional Web designer to create your site and you just want to be able to make simple updates.
Adobe GoLive CS: Adobe GoLive CS2 was a popular program among graphic designers and Adobe fans, but when Adobe acquired Dreamweaver, they stopped promoting GoLive. Today, Adobe encourages customers to make the switch to Dreamweaver.
Microsoft Expression Web: The newest contender in the Web design arena, Microsoft Expression Web is a professional Web design program designed to replace Microsoft FrontPage. Although Expression Web was launched as a completely new program from Microsoft, FrontPage users are encouraged to upgrade to Expression Web and FrontPage is no longer being developed by Microsoft.
