Design in Photoshop or in the browser | Design Shack

For the most part, when we look at a Photoshop document that is meant to be converted to a website, we try to see code wherever possible. It’s like that moment in the Matrix where Neo looks around at what he once saw as the normal world and suddenly sees the code behind it. Web designers don’t see layers and layer effects, we see divs and CSS properties.

Given that this is the case, the majority of the work involved in taking a static design live is more in the realm of rebuilding than slicing. Instead of slicing that glossy button and serving it up as an image, I’ll use CSS to rebuilt it from scratch. This process is repeated throughout the whole of the site, often with images used primarily for actual content rather than design (though there’s still plenty you can/shouldn’t do with pure CSS).