Day 39: Finished Photoshop (Slicing, Save for Web, and Workflow), Started on Adobe Illustrator

Slicing a PSD (Photoshop Document) means that you're literally cutting up, optimizing, and saving all of the web site designs, graphics, and images that the developer will need to create a working website.  More specifically, slicing refers to using the tool inside Photoshop.  The slice tool is located within the crop tool's dropdown.

When deciding how to save an image, GIF/PNG-8 files have a limited color range, small file size, and are good for line art, illustration, and logos (also, uses 256 colors and supports transparency).  JPG compresses file size by discarding data, and supports a broad color range.  PNG 24 can handle effects and transparency (but some older browsers do not support transparancy).  PNG compresses better than GIF.  JPG is lossy, while GIF/PNG-8 and PNG 24 are lossless.  A matte prevents a logo from having sharp, jagged edges.  If transparency or smoother edges are needed, files should be saved as PNG-24.

We went over setting up a Photoshop work environment, as well as physical ergonomics of a work station.  When you scale an image, you want to convert it to a smart object (right click, convert to smart object), that way its original size remains intact throughout the scaling.  Photoshop, Preferences, Performance allows you to adjust Photoshop's performance, adjusting them to work best with your system specs.  We also discussed Window, Actions.

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator is vector-based, as opposed to Photoshop, which is raster-based.  Raster images lose visual quality when we enlarge the image (and maintain quality when we shrink it).  In raster images, if you zoom in, you can see the pixels that compose the image.  Vector images, on the other hand, are based on anchor points and paths, and so, even if we zoom in, the clarity remains, we will not see pixel squares as we zoom up close.  Vector images allow us to not have to deal with resolution.

I am heading to a coding meetup in a bit.  It's hosted by Coder Vox, a coding boot camp here in Austin.  It's a meeting for beginners to discuss web applications.  I'm stoked, it's my first coding-related meetup.  I'll update this entry either later tonight at 10 p.m. or so when I get home from the meetup (it's from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., but then I've got to drive across town) or tomorrow morning.

Today was a great day, I was super productive!

SUMMARY OF CODING SKILLS

Total Treehouse Points: 3,248
Treehouse Points by Subject Matter: HTML 663, CSS 1,599, Design 956, and Miscellaneous
Treehouse Ranking (%): "You have more total points than 83% of all students."

Badge(s) Earned Today:
Slice and Save for Web
Workflow Basics
Introduction to Illustrator

Courses Completed:
How to Make a Website
HTML
CSS Foundations
CSS Layout Techniques

Aesthetic Foundations
Design Foundations
Photoshop Foundations

Books Read or in Progress:"Head First HTML and CSS," by E. Robson & E. Freeman (In progress, I've read the 37 pg. preface and the first 255 pgs. of actual content, which is the HTML section of the book)

Hours Spent Coding Today: 5
Total Hours Coding: 177