Review of Photoshop Tutorials

For this blog post I've taken reviewed three tutorials found at the site  27 Best Photoshop Tutorials

The first tutorial I chose to complete was the Photo Portfolio Web Page Layout. I actually found it terribly confusing to follow although after a while I was able to determine what the author meant. I like the final product it produced and did manage to learn a few things about the way photoshop works, but the tutorial itself lacked a lot in explanation. There was not enough step by step processes, inaccurate screen captures (the shape was a color that wasn’t established until the next page) and just a lot of assumption about using the tools and how to access them. There were also inaccurate instructions about how to access certain features. I’m not sure if that’s a version issue or an author issue.

The next tutorial I tackled was Create a Sleek, High-End Web Design from Scratch.
This one was much easier to follow. The steps were more clearly defined and the author explained what he was going to do before giving the instructions. The only problem was I had issues with various elements working as described. No matter how carefully I copied the gradient color numbers he supplied, my background color was different which through off other elements of the design. Also the graphic he used was no longer available on the wesbsite he specified. However I was able to make due by grabbing the piece from the tutorial itself. I learned several new techniques in this tutorial and over all felt it was time well spent, even if the exact outcome wasn’t replicated. The author also took the next step of sending you to a site to learn the html to actually create the page, something the previous tutorial had not done.

The last tutorial I took was 3D Studio Layout - Portfolio Layout. This was the simplest of the tutorials and the easiest to follow. It also provided all the tools you needed to complete it so in the process I gained a couple of interesting brush sets. It appropriately explained the steps and gave nice pictures to compare. I was able to easily reproduce the image and learned some neat techniques along the way.

The Web Development Process

The web development process is similar to any other design process. First you must meet with the client to determine their specific wants and needs. You want to determine their problems so that you can develop an appropriate solution. You need to spend time researching their business or project and learn as much about it as you can. Then you need to sit down and start to develop a design. You need to determine what content they’ll need and how best to organize it within the site. Then you can work on the overall look and feel of the website and start the actual design of it. Once you create the site you should upload it for testing and client approval then launch and maintain the site.

Personally, I am most interested in the design aspects of web design as well as content creation and overall organization. While I am interested in learning code and CSS, I know that my personal strengths lie in layout and design as well as writing. This ties in with my design interests and career experiences. While I am interested in learning about more involved programming this is not an area I believe I’ll explore in depth. I’d like to work with a programmer to create websites.

I’m also very interested in the ever developing area of social media and integrating that into websites. The current trend in facebook and twitter and other social sites makes it much easier to tie everything together for the user.