Don't let what you might not be overly familiar with such as slices and Javascript rollovers keep you away from creating a web site that will not only support all of your needs, but that you will be proud of at the same time. The following is a Photoshop web tutorial that will help you on your way to this goal by starting out with a simple 2 graphic web page design. Let's Begin
First, lets make a banner and place it in a table containing 5 rows and 1 column. We will place the banner in the top row. The text for your site and any photos you might like to include will be in the next row. Row 3 will contain a separator, row 4 will be set for your text links and a copyright notice, and row 5 will hold a second separator.
For this example we'll name this site My Site. Now we need to find a graphic for the banner. You can find professional level images at sites such as the iStockPhoto galleries and at only $3 or so for most images they are affordable. Free stock photo sites are also available for perfectly good quality images.
Try to incorporate the colors from the graphic into the colors of the banner. You can choose multiple colors but make sure they work well together or create a variation of the same shade from just one color. Here I will create 3 different shades of blue.
By using the opacity slider on a sampled color you can create a nice variation. To sample a color, let's copy and paste the main graphic you have chosen into a new document. Select the eyedropper tool from the toolbox and sample a color by clicking on the one you might like in your graphic. Doing this will change the foreground color in the toolbox.
Now open another new document and in the Background Contents select White. Click OK. With this document open, create a new layer by going Layer> New> Layer. Then go Edit> Fill and select Contents, Use: Foreground Color. This will fill your document with the color you just sampled. The trick here is to lower the opacity using the slider and to keep playing around with it until you find a nice shade. When you settle on one, flatten the image by going Layer> Flatten Image. Use the eyedropper tool again, this time to change the foreground color square in your toolbox so it is the same as your newly created color. Now click on the color square and the color picker will come up, and you can write down the numbers of your new color.
I went through my fonts and settled on Onyx regular. When you find a font that works for you, try playing with the tracking, the leading, and the scale - or a combination. It makes it more personal and unique when you include some tweaks.
Go Window> Character in Photoshop to choose a font. You will see a list of your installed fonts in the palette. To fine tune the settings, pull up the Paragraph palette by going Window> Paragraph.
If you are looking for new fonts, you have many options. Free font resources are available to you online.
For our example, create a new document that is 600 x 300 pixels. You can adjust this size according to your own design when you choose your own stock photo and plan the layout.
Now I'll create a new layer, Layer> New Layer and I'll call it Designer Girl. I'll place the illustration on this layer and shrink it to fit. You shrink your graphic by choosing Edit> Transform> Scale. The bounding box will have handles. Use the Shift Key to constrain proportions, and shrink your image by selecting the top left handle and pulling towards the bottom right. To move the graphic, drag inside the bounding box. Click enter when you're happy with the results.
Next we want a tinted background. I'm going to go with the light pink.
Choosing the background layer, Layer 1, fill it with the light green by steps Select> All, then Edit> Fill. In the dialog box in Contents, select Use: Color and in the Color Picker enter the numbers you noted earlier.
The result is a 600 x 300 banner with a gentle background color and with the art placed on the left. We're getting there.
Let's say we want to add a thick stroke to the background layer to liven up the design for more interest. Make sure the background layer, Layer 1, is active, and create a copy by going Layer> New> Layer Via Copy. Next double-click next to the layer name; this will bring up the Blending Options in the Layers Style dialog box.
Select and then click on the word Stroke in the Styles options on the left side. I changed the settings to Size: 7px, Position: Inside, Blend Mode: Normal, Opacity: 100%, Fill Type: Color, and I clicked the color swatch and entered D04E8C in the color picker. Click OK.
The border is just to balance out the design. Feel free to make changes and get creative with your own ideas.
We're going to put the names of the main sections directly on the banner. These will be the links. Since it will be just one single graphic we will be using image maps.
Create a new layer for your words. Use the type tool to create the section names and then use the move tool to position them exactly to where you want on the banner. Major Note: pick a color for your text that is darker than your background color!!! Otherwise it will either blend in or you won't be able to see it at all. Do this by going Window> Character. In the Character palette you'll find a color square that you can click on to change colors.
You'll need an HTML editor like GoLive or Dreamweaver to automate this process. It's really very simple. You make little "maps" over each word and then enter the link destination. If you don't have an HTML editor you'll need to do a Google search on image maps to find a tutorial, or buy a book like Elizabeth Castro's HTML Quickstart Guide to help you out.
Now create a new document. The width should be 600 pixels, and the height should be about 12 pixels and fill this with your background color. Next, with the text tool and a dark color, type some periods, like this:........... and position them centered in the file. Adjust the size and the spacing until it looks perfect and save this as a GIF file.
In your HTML editor of choice make a simple table containing 5 rows and 1 column. If you're planning to use text link navigation below the banner instead of image maps on the banner, make an extra row ending with 6 rows in your table. Now put your elements into the individual rows of the table and you're done.
This is a lot of information to go over and sometimes can get to be a little overwhelming. If this is the case, or you are simply on a time budget, there is a shortcut you can take. You can purchase ready-made templates from sites such as Template Monster that you can use as a foundation to create web pages in Photoshop.
On the front page of Template Monster you'll find a pulldown menu where you can select options and then carry out a search for a template. The templates are reasonably priced and pretty easy to manage in GoLive or Dreamweaver. In the past I've purchased a template solely for the color scheme and the images. On certain projects I found this was less expensive than buying stock photos. Visit Template Monster to see the wide variety of website templates that they offer.
Hopefully this tutorial will help you create something wonderful that will take your new website in the direction you aimed for. Good Luck