Web Design Essentials

This book concentrates on using Photoshop 5.5, Illustrator 8.0 and GoLive 4.0 to create Web sites, pages, rollovers, batched icons, animations, and many other useful, creative, and up-to-date elements. These tips will not only add spark to your Web design, it will also speed up production time. The techniques are contributed by several professionals using examples from their own projects. This "many chefs" style ensures that the ideas are fresh, clever, and fairly simple, yet still yield big results.

For example, Jason Kottke of kottke.org shows a step-and-repeat trick in Photoshop for building 3-D text without any fancy plug-ins. Florian Fangohr of hotstudio.com explains how to use ImageReady to create droplets: batch-processing drag and drop actions. He also gives a short tutorial on how to create "remote" rollovers (also known as "pointer" rollovers) in GoLive.

Some techniques have uses outside the realm of Web design. For example, Noreen Santini (hotstudio.com) charts out Photoshop's blending modes, and Sandra Kelch (theispot.com) offers a demonstration on using the Magic Wand tool to select and replace colors.

The book organizes tasks into three categories of difficulty, though none should prove troubling to beginners. And some of the tips, especially the animations, aren't clear. These caveats aside, Web Design Essentials makes a handy addition to any studio library. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered: Selected techniques for using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and GoLive for Web design, including tips on site planning and management, preparing Web graphics and typography, using tables, frames, animations, and rollovers.