How do they do it? Professional looking sites...

[Scott Dunaway]

How do they get these sites to looking so polished? What I mean is you
take some sites like this

http://www.papadocs.com/

or

http://www.amelabs.com/

that look nice and are fairly user friendly. But to me they don't even
come close to comparing to sites like these

http://www.cingular.com/

and

http://www.voxunity.com/

The last 2 use lots of 3D type images and gradient coloring in their
buttons and such. That's what I'm asking. What programs do you use, or
others use, to make these images and buttons for such fantastic sites?
Photoshop? Paintshop? What else?

Also, do any of you know of any URL's that point to any tutorials
about this? Please, any information would be highly appreciated.

I recently signed up with a new host and got access to alot of
templates, for free. I can use the buttons and such from those
templates to get what I'm wanting for my personal site, but that's not
what I want to do. I really want to be able to sit down and design my
site from scratch. Using nothing but my imagination and my computer. I
want to do polished, 3D buttons and multi-image overlay image maps. To
me, such sites are not just professional, but works of Art. Thank you
all for your time. And for those of you that try, thank you for your
help and consideration.

Scott D.

 

[Augustus]

The last 2 use lots of 3D type images and gradient coloring in their
buttons and such. That's what I'm asking. What programs do you use, or
others use, to make these images and buttons for such fantastic sites?
Photoshop? Paintshop? What else?

You can do all that in photoshop... what program the designer specifically
uses is up to their personal preferences and experience.

Also, do any of you know of any URL's that point to any tutorials
about this? Please, any information would be highly appreciated.

Google for "photoshop tutorials" (or whichever graphic program you want to
use)

I recently signed up with a new host and got access to alot of
templates, for free. I can use the buttons and such from those
templates to get what I'm wanting for my personal site, but that's not
what I want to do. I really want to be able to sit down and design my
site from scratch. Using nothing but my imagination and my computer. I
want to do polished, 3D buttons and multi-image overlay image maps. To
me, such sites are not just professional, but works of Art. Thank you
all for your time. And for those of you that try, thank you for your
help and consideration.

There is alot to these programs... if you really want to get into it you
might look at investing in a 2-4 week course on one of these programs

A big factor is also if you have the flair and patience for it... doing a
high end "artistic" site isn't going to be something you can sit down and
whip up in an hour or two of work, you can expect to put in days and
possibly a week or two or more into a design (this is where alot of people
break down... when doing HTML or programming you can accomplish alot in 4 or
5 hours worth of solid work... with graphic design 4 or 5 hours worth of
solid work and you probably still only have a very basic outline)

I'm not saying don't give it a try... you never know, you might have a great
undiscovered talent for it. You just want to watch out that you don't end
up spending alot of time on this where you could best be looking for work or
working on paying jobs.

Personally, graphic design is not my thing and so I either hire graphic
design students at one of the local schools (they make a few bucks and it
helps him/her build their portfolio) or hire a freelancer in Mexico (cheap
and fast)

 

[Eric Biller]

The last 2 use lots of 3D type images and gradient coloring in their
buttons and such. That's what I'm asking. What programs do you use, or
others use, to make these images and buttons for such fantastic sites?
Photoshop? Paintshop? What else?

If you are developing with a Windows-based box Macromedia Fireworks is a
really tough app to make those buttons. In addition with Photoshop you have
a quite good basis for building grfx for the web. Concerning 3D-Texts with
textures and anims take a look at Ulead Cool3D and for mapping your own
textures on a 3D-Text an easy way is using Xara3D. This is my set of apps I
am using.

Also, do any of you know of any URL's that point to any tutorials
about this? Please, any information would be highly appreciated.

Try googling. There are a lot of resources concerning grfx.

A lot of tutorials can be found at:
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/softwaretutorials/

greets
Eric

 

[Henry]

How do they get these sites to looking so polished? What I mean is you
take some sites like this

http://www.papadocs.com/

or

http://www.amelabs.com/

that look nice and are fairly user friendly. But to me they don't even
come close to comparing to sites like these

Nah...


Take a look at this sites...


http://www.ozones.com/

http://www.ozoniclabs.com/

http://www.ozones.com/imagesindex.html



and check these ones...



http://www.game-deception.com/index.php


http://www.ravernews.com/


http://www.mtechmedia.net/whoiscart/index.php

 

[WebcastMaker]

How do they get these sites to looking so polished?

It is the graphic artist. He/she is the person that turns a plain site
into a polished one.

It is being able to afford the professional studio where the images were
all professionally taken are the exact image you want, rather than using
some stock image that comes close.

Of course there are also many different meanings of polished. I agree,
with your definition of polished, others won't.

 

[Hywel]

Nah...


http://www.ravernews.com/

Hmm. This one is utter rubbish.

 

[Jeffrey Silverman]

Take a look at this sites...


http://www.ozones.com/

http://www.ozoniclabs.com/

http://www.ozones.com/imagesindex.html

Doc Ozone has been doing *amazing* stuff with PhotoShop and Javascript for
years. I learned a lot of techniques from him. Definitely recommend these
sites!

 

[Roy Schestowitz]

How do they get these sites to looking so polished? What I mean is you
take some sites like this

http://www.papadocs.com/

or

http://www.amelabs.com/

that look nice and are fairly user friendly. But to me they don't even
come close to comparing to sites like these

http://www.cingular.com/

and

http://www.voxunity.com/

The last 2 use lots of 3D type images and gradient coloring in their
buttons and such. That's what I'm asking. What programs do you use, or
others use, to make these images and buttons for such fantastic sites?
Photoshop? Paintshop? What else?

Also, do any of you know of any URL's that point to any tutorials
about this? Please, any information would be highly appreciated.

I recently signed up with a new host and got access to alot of
templates, for free. I can use the buttons and such from those
templates to get what I'm wanting for my personal site, but that's not
what I want to do. I really want to be able to sit down and design my
site from scratch. Using nothing but my imagination and my computer. I
want to do polished, 3D buttons and multi-image overlay image maps. To
me, such sites are not just professional, but works of Art. Thank you
all for your time. And for those of you that try, thank you for your
help and consideration.

Hi Scott,

Use The GIMP. It is an excellent free application that is not available for
Window$ too. I used JASC Paintshop and GIMP to do all the graphics in my
site and I prefer the latter, still.

Having said that, one must have experience too. With GIMP you get some
scripts that do all the hard decisions for you. You give it only an input
text and it will return a wonderful shiny button or a banner. Try it!

Also see banners that can be generated in a matter of seconds:

http://www.schestowitz.com/Software/Script_Fu/

 

[Toby Inkster]

Use The GIMP. It is an excellent free application that is not available for
Window$ too.

s/not/now/

 

[Noozer]

Doc Ozone has been doing *amazing* stuff with PhotoShop and Javascript for
years. I learned a lot of techniques from him. Definitely recommend these
sites!

Sites that are built for a single resolution and waste the rest of the page?
Don't work properly in Firefox? That's good???

 

[WebcastMaker]

Sites that are built for a single resolution and waste the rest of the page?
Don't work properly in Firefox? That's good???

Actually the sites are pretty awesome. And I am using Firefox. But
different strokes for different folks.

 

[rf]

Take a look at this sites...

http://www.ozones.com/

totally unreadable for me.

http://www.ozoniclabs.com/ Ditto.

http://www.ozones.com/imagesindex.html

Mystery meat navigation. Why should I bother?

http://www.game-deception.com/index.php

Sort of readable but I have to squint. I would not stay very long.

http://www.ravernews.com/ Ditto.

http://www.mtechmedia.net/whoiscart/index.php

Ditto with the exception that the navigation is totally unreadable. The most
important part of the page is the least usable. How bloody bizarre is that
And it is an image. There is no way at all I can make it bigger. Bloody
stupid business decision IMHO.

Next please?

This time provide links to sites that I can actually see and use, sites
where I can change my font size so as to be able to read the content. Keep
in mind that I am after content not gratuitous flash or pretty graphics or a
work of art. I am here to perhaps purchase something.

Also keep in mind why I am a bit blind and have to wear glasses. I am a bit
older than you. I am retired. I have lots of money to spend. Lots.

I am also totally intolerant. I am allowed to be. I have seen it all, you
know, been there, done that. If somebody annoys me these days I just walk
away.

If I can not immediately use a web site I simply move on to the next one. If
you happen to be trying to sell me something on your unreadable web site
then you have missed out on getting my money. Forever.

Your loss. Me? I have not lost, the next site has exactly what I want and
serendipitously cheaper

 

[Scott Dunaway]

Thank you all for your help. I'll look into the photoshop tutorials.
And I'm trying to get that GIMP program too. It seems it is available
in Windows.... Again, thank you all for all the help. I will keep
checking this thread and others in case someone has other
recommendations and or url's to point me to.


Scott D.

 

[Toby Inkster]

It is an image. There is no way at all I can make it bigger. Bloody
stupid business decision IMHO.

Opera will resize images happily.

 

[Dylan Parry]

As an authority on the subject, Toby Inkster proclaimed:

Opera will resize images happily.

Doesn't work well enough to be able to resize and keep the text readable
though, which is the downside to using a raster image for text.

 

[WebcastMaker]

Next please?
This time provide links to sites that I can actually see and use, sites
where I can change my font size so as to be able to read the content. Keep
in mind that I am after content not gratuitous flash or pretty graphics or a
work of art. I am here to perhaps purchase something.

But you should keep in mind that not everyone thinks like you do, and
some people enjoy all the things you seem to hate.

Also keep in mind why I am a bit blind and have to wear glasses. I am a bit
older than you. I am retired. I have lots of money to spend. Lots.

But if what I am selling is not marketed at you, then I really don't
care how much money you have to spend, your not going to buy my product
anyway, so why would I cater to you? I am catering to those that will
actually buy my product.

I am also totally intolerant.

Nuff said there...

If I can not immediately use a web site I simply move on to the next one. If
you happen to be trying to sell me something on your unreadable web site
then you have missed out on getting my money. Forever.

This behaviour is still the exception.

Your loss. Me? I have not lost, the next site has exactly what I want and
serendipitously cheaper

Your absolutely right, I lost you. (you old blind fart), I have lost you
as a customer forever <sigh...>, but I gained those 3 20 year old good
vision, MTV freaks, who have the attention span of a gnat, but that LOVE
all this fancy crap, and they have money too... And hey, these are the
guys I am trying to reach... hmmmmm

It's a mighty big web out there, one size does not fit all. It is
called marketing.

 

[Deryck]

But if what I am selling is not marketed at you, then I really don't
care how much money you have to spend, your not going to buy my product
anyway, so why would I cater to you? I am catering to those that will
actually buy my product.

Why do you assume that just because the product is not marketed at rf's
demographic he will not buy it?
For example, he might want to buy it as a gift for someone.

Cheers

Deryck

 

[Noozer]

Opera will resize images happily.

But Opera is a pretty poor image editor. It's just about as good as a web
browser as well.

 

[Noozer]

Your absolutely right, I lost you. (you old blind fart), I have lost you
as a customer forever <sigh...>, but I gained those 3 20 year old good
vision, MTV freaks, who have the attention span of a gnat, but that LOVE
all this fancy crap, and they have money too... And hey, these are the
guys I am trying to reach... hmmmmm

Lost me too... Oh well.

 

[WebcastMaker]

Lost me too... Oh well.

So