Web Development With Adobe Dreamweaver & Photoshop

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Dreamweaver and Photoshop - A Reliable Combination

For building websites, Adobe's Dreamweaver and Photoshop applications are a great combination. Of course each works well on its own, but together they are a force to be reckoned with especially with the new CS4 versions of each.

Photoshop is the industry standard image editing program for professional raster graphics and other digital art, while Dreamweaver is a web development application. Both are owned by Adobe Systems.

About Dreamweaver 

Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Recent versions have incorporated support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting languages and frameworks including ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages, and PHP.

Dreamweaver CS4 is now available.

Features of Dreamweaver 

As a WYSIWYG Presto-based editor, Dreamweaver can hide the HTML code details of pages from the user, making it possible for non-coders to create web pages and sites.

Dreamweaver CSS

Example of CSS layout

Adobe has increased the support for CSS and other ways to lay out a page without tables in later versions of the application, with the ability to convert tables to layers and vice versa.

Dreamweaver allows users to preview websites in many browsers, provided that they are installed on their computer. It also has some site management tools, such as the ability to find and replace lines of text or code by whatever parameters specified across the entire site, and a templatisation feature for creating multiple pages with similar structures. The behaviours panel also enables use of basic JavaScript without any coding knowledge.

Dreamweaver can use "Extensions" - small programs, which any web developer can write (usually in HTML and JavaScript). Extensions provide added functionality to the software for whoever wants to download and install them. Dreamweaver is supported by a large community of extension developers who make extensions available (both commercial and free) for most web development tasks from simple rollover effects to full-featured shopping carts.

Like other HTML editors, Dreamweaver edits files locally, then uploads all edited files to the remote web server using FTP, SFTP, or WebDAV. Dreamweaver CS4 now supports the Subversion (SVN) version control system.

NEW! - Dreamweaver CS4 

Adobe Dreamweaver CS4

Amazon Price: $378.99 (as of 07/05/2009)Buy Now

  1. Style your sites with the enhanced CSS implementation tools.
  2. Define and modify CSS rules instantly in the Properties panel.
  3. Use the Related Files and Code Navigator features to find specific CSS rules.
  4. Tap the power of built-in code hints for faster and cleaner coding in HTML; JavaScript; Ajax frameworks such as Spry, jQuery, and Prototype; and several server languages.
  5. Design and code in a tool that supports most of the leading web development technologies, including HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript, Ajax, PHP, ColdFusion, and ASP.

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Dreamweaver Books 

Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual

Amazon Price: $29.69 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Hands-On Training

Amazon Price: $34.64 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP

Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Dreamweaver CS3 for Windows and Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Amazon Price: $23.09 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Fast Track To Learning About Dreamweaver 

Great way to get started!

A Fun, Fast And Simple Dreamweaver Tutorial That Shows You How To Build Your Website, Step by Step From Start To Finish.

29 Dreamweaver Video Tutorials That Take You Step-By-Step Through Building Your Whole Wesbite Without Cracking A Book!

You don't even need to own the Dreamweaver software to use these videos. Everything you need to learn Dreamweaver is included.

DreamweaverMadeSimple

Now you can build your website using Dreamweaver in less than 1 hour!

About Photoshop 

The flagship product of Adobe Systems

Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current and primary market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation. It has been described as "an industry standard for graphics professionals" and was one of the early "killer applications" on the Macintosh.

Photoshop CS4, the current eleventh iteration of the program, was officially announced on 23 September 2008 and released on 15 October 2008. "CS" reflects its integration with other Creative Suite products, and the number "4" represents it as the fourth version released since Adobe re-branded its products under the CS umbrella.

Features of Photoshop 

Photoshop has strong ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring.

Files in Photoshop's native format, .PSD, can be exported to and from:

Adobe ImageReady
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Premiere Pro
After Effects
Adobe Encore
...

... to make professional standard DVDs and provide non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the Web. For example, Photoshop CS broadly supports making menus and buttons for DVDs. For .PSD files exported as a menu or button, it only needs to have layers, nested in layer sets with a cuing format, and Adobe Encore DVD reads them as buttons or menus.

Photoshop revolves around editing pixels, unlike Adobe Illustrator which uses vectors. When an image is rendered into Photoshop, it is compiled by millions of single-colored pixels. At its core, Photoshop works by manipulating each individual pixel. Pixels are manipulated according to whichever tool is being used. In the case of other tools, such as Blending Modes, the pixels are modulated according to their relations with other pixels. Individual colors are encoded by a 3-part scale: red values, green values, and blue values (RGB). Each value is measured on a scale of 0 to 255, with saturation increasing proportionate to number scale. A value of Red: 255 Green: 0 Blue: 0 will be rendered as pure red. All 3 values at 255 will be rendered as white, all values at 0 will be rendered as black, etc.

Photoshop can utilize the color models RGB, lab, CMYK, grayscale, binary bitmap, and duotone. Photoshop has the ability to read and write raster and vector image formats such as .EPS, .PNG, .GIF, .JPEG, and Fireworks. It also has several native file formats:

  1. The .PSD (Photoshop Document) format stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, Clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .EPS or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. Photoshop's popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used, and it is supported to some extent by most competing software.

  2. The .PSB (Large Document Format) format is a newer version of .PSD designed for files over 2 gigabytes.

  3. The .PDD (PhotoDeluxe Document) format is a version of .PSD that only supports the features found in the discontinued PhotoDeluxe software.

New Photoshop CS4 Interface 

Enhanced collapsible Palette Panes

Photoshop now supports a new interface that's slick and intuitive. Don't worry, things are still in the same place, more or less.

Photoshop is now dressed in collapsible Palette Panes (as one with orange border to the right). The palettes can be docked, minimized into icons or dragged out of the panes to perform the way they always have. This new interface really maximizes screen real estate and lets the application get out of the way of your work. The toolbox can now be displayed as a single column or the standard 2-column for those of us who resist change.

There are new enhancements to the full screen mode (F key). There are now 4 modes:
  1. Standard: The default view.

  2. Maximized: The pasteboard fills the window and the document is enlarged to the maximum possible size without being covered by any palettes.

  3. Full screen with menu: Hides the Status bar and fills the screen with the pasteboard.

  4. Full screen without Menu: Same as previous but without any menu at the top. (This is sometimes called the "presentation mode").

As always, press the TAB key to hide the palettes, but now scroll to the edges of the screen and the interface will elegantly slide out, awaiting your interaction.

NEW! - Photoshop CS4 

Adobe Photoshop CS4

Amazon Price: $645.49 (as of 07/05/2009)Buy Now

  1. Take greater advantage of a more intuitive user interface.
  2. Bring your vision to life with industry-leading tools that let you enhance images and create composites that help meet your highest standards
  3. Smooth integration with other Adobe software and enhancements that leverage the power of today's faster graphics processors.
  4. Photoshop CS4 features new ways to make image adjustments and create masks, more powerful compositing, improved color correction, accelerated graphics handling, and enhanced raw image processing

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Photoshop Books 

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers (Voices That Matter)

Amazon Price: $31.49 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Classroom in a Book

Amazon Price: $34.64 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Photoshop CS3 Bible

Amazon Price: $26.39 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Photoshop CS3 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Amazon Price: $26.39 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Photoshop CS3 for Windows and Macintosh

Amazon Price: $14.39 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Dreamweaver & Photoshop on eBay 

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Happy Designing, Do Drop a Line And Say Hi! 

Rob3 wrote...

in reply to Pukeko Hi Pukeko. The Dreamweaver book I would highly recommend is Joseph Lowerys - Dreamweaver CS Bible. See link below. I have had this book for 6 months now and it is so comprehensive and covers all aspects clearly. Also, take a look at the good quality video tutorials at tutvid.com, this guy really knows his stuff (also photoshop etc). Good luck!

ReplyPosted June 19, 2009

Pukeko wrote...

Hi Thanks for this. It was helpful I just purchased Dreamweaver CS4 and prior to this have only made template based webpages. No clue what I am doing and all the books/videos I find assume you know CS2 or 3 and just give the updates. Any recommendations on a book for beginners?

ReplyPosted June 19, 2009

The Two Bibles 

Dreamweaver CS3 Bible

Amazon Price: $32.99 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

Photoshop CS3 Bible

Amazon Price: $26.39 (as of 07/05/2009) Buy Now

by Rob3

I was brought up in East Africa, then moved to Ireland where I lived for 20 years. I now live in the UK where I write about wine and internet marketin... (more)

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