How Easy is it to convert PSD to HTML

Friday 23 December 2011

It should be made clear that to convert PSD to HTML easily by yourself is an oxymoron. It is a tough task and there is no easy way to do it. It is like saying make haste slowly. It is a tedious step by step process. PSD stands for Photoshop Document. A Photoshop document (PSD) has many components. These include headers and footers, side bars, columns, text, user buttons and images which make up the entire PSD file. Nevertheless if the conversion from PSD to HTML is done as carefully and painstakingly as an archaeologist at a new find, then success is guaranteed.

The entire PSD file will consist of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) sections and CSS (Cascading Style Sheet)  files which have to be transferred in tandem to complete the PSD to HTML service. The first thing to be done is to slice up the prepared web design in PSD. A deft use of the mouse can break up the PSD into manageable slices. These are to be saved as a file which can be named ‘ready for web.’ Next the Photoshop platform allows us to use ‘HTML & images’ tool.

Photoshop has also evolved and made it easier for the web developer by adding a feature called Layer Comp. The Layer Comp feature gives details of each component of the PSD file. In case the Layer Comp is not available then the step by step method has to be followed. The next steps have to be precisely done like a surgeon to convert PSD to HTML and PSD to CSS. The first step is to create guides they are like frame corners to differentiate between slices.

Now we turn our attention to the Text editor. One has to have a good knowledge of HTML tags for placing the text on the page precisely. The guides have to be used to demarcate content, footer, and header. Then with the aid of PSD we can check the precise size and dimensions of images and transfer them to the web page. This will be necessary also for the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) definition. The ‘palette’ tool will help with the ‘eyes’ to set the tone and colour of the web page.

The file extensions to be used are .html for HTML files and .css for CSS files. The website then can be observed and compared with the original and any components that are missing can be filled in. With automatic software available now the need for learning complicated and bulky HTML codes will soon disappear.

Several self-help tutorials are also available online to help you convert PSD to HTML all by yourself. Some good tutorials that can provide you with the right kind of help required to convert PSD to HTML and convert PSD to CSS are as follows:

1. Encoding a Photoshop Mockup into XHTML & CSS
2. Elegant and Simple CSS3 Web Layout
3. From Photoshop to HTML
4. Build a Sleek Portfolio Site from Scratch
5. From PSD to HTML, Building a Set of Website Designs Step by Step

Many other tutorials are available online which can prove a great resource to help you easily convert PSD to HTML by yourself

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