I am a bit confused after doing a lot of reading. Do I use CSS only. Some advise creating in Photoshop or Fireworks and slice up the image before importing into Dreamweaver. Others seem to design using only Flash and use dynamic text to update the content. Which is the best most professional way? Thanks.

The first way.

Hi -
I think using Save for Web in PS [a layer or combined layers for sections of the layout] is better than 'slicing and dicing' which is ultimately going to be part of a table-based layout: not necessary in a css design where content is separated from the style.

Have fun,
El

Flash sites are inaccessible under a lot of circumstances so I'd definitely avoid that route. Since I've never used PS, Fireworks or Dreamweaver to generate code, I can't comment on those methods. The best solution would be minimum or no tables and all the styles in css. Being an old-fashioned girl, I do it from scratch the old-fashioned way - in a text editor.

You first design your site in PS. You then slice it and after you have images in correct folder name them so you can keep track of them better. It doesnt always work to do individual images save for web as mentioned. Of course you use this option after slicing.

Note: Use color code instead of images where this will work. Makes your page load faster. You can also use css for most of this as well.

So far as coding have all of this and your images into one folder with a seperate images folder. Keep your css style sheet in one seperate page makes the code much cleaner.

Always save ur psd before you slice in a backup folder. Your sliced images as well.

Use FWs or PS to design your layout. Slice your images and export them individually into a defined DW site.

You can use those images as part of your layout in DW. Either with a table layout - but you should consider using CSS to style your page.

Here are some beginner CSS tutorials by Adrian Senior - easy to understand and will get you up to speed in understanding basic CSS and then progress to more complicated layouts using CSS (I'm assuming you use DW).
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/dre..._concepts.html

I would never let a graphics program write the html for my page. You will get a fixed (read rigid) layout, full of bloated code that will be impossible to troubleshoot if you don't know html. That's another thing, make sure you learn html. www.w3schools.com

Nadia