Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is a great tool, but people often use it for the wrong reasons. Photoshop is a raster based software, meaning it works on a pixel based level. Images built using rastor based software can easily become pixelated, but that can be avoided. Photoshop is ideal for editing pictures/photos but not ideal for images with text, or for designing layouts for web or print.

Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator is hands-down my favorite of all the Adobe products out there. You can produce pretty much any type of image or file from it, so I use it to produce all of my web graphics, web designs, and even documents. Illustrator is different from Photoshop in that it is a vector based software, meaning instead of working on a pixel level, it works using lines. You can zoom in and out as much as you want from whatever you make in Illustrator, and it will never lose it’s detail. Now when you output that into a rastor based image such as a jpg, you may end up with some pixelation, but when resizing within Illustrator, you’ll never lose that detail. If you continuously resize your image in Photoshop, you will certainly distort it. So all of this makes Illustrator great for producing web graphics, documents, and full page designs, but not so great for working with photographs.

Adobe InDesign
InDesign is most commonly used for complex book layouts. My company, College Prowler uses it to layout all of our books on colleges. What I personally tend to use it for is actually to produce pdf presentations. As a designer, I much prefer pdfs over any other document type such as a Word document or Powerpoint presentation as I think they appear more professional. InDesign is a vector based program just like Illustrator, and has much of the same capabilities, but focuses it’s strengths on multiple pages and master pages. This allows you to make a master view for your presentation or book (i.e. logo in the bottom right corner, page numbers, et cetera) while also allowing you to customize each page. I wouldn’t advise InDesign over Illustrator for anything but books and presentations simply because you do lose some functionality from Illustrator.

To help you decide between software options, try out this table:

Project Description	Photoshop	Illustrator	InDesign
Editing Vacation Photos
Editing Photos To Print
Editing Photos To Post Online
Creating An Icon For The Web
Creating An Image For The Web
Creating An Image With Text
Creating A Document For Print
Creating A Document For The Web
Creating A Website Design
Creating A Multiple Page Document
Creating A PDF Presentation
Creating A Book Layout

If you have any specific questions or examples you’d like to ask about, don’t hesitate to ask!

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format
Images with a .gif extension are commonly used for the web because they compress quite well. They function by allowing you to restrict the number of colors that make up the image, with a maximum of 256 allowed. GIF images also allow for layering, which is commonly used to create moving images that you may often see in the form of internet ads or moving smiley faces. GIF images also allow for transparency so that items can be seen that appear beneath them.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group
Images ending in a .jpg or .jpeg extension are the most versatile images around. They have different levels of compression and are compatible with both RBG and CMYK color formats, making them suitable for both web and print. They have no color limitations, which can make their file sizes much larger than GIFs.

PNG: Portable Network Graphics
Images ending in .png only allow the RGB color format, meaning they are not suitable for print. Their biggest benefit is fantastic transparency capabilities that GIF images can’t match. They also tend to have a large file sizes because their compression isn’t always as successful as that of GIFs or JPEGs.

To help you decide what format to use for your images, try out this table:

Image Description	GIF	JPEG	PNG
Black & White Photo
Full Color Photo
Black & White image for print
Color image for print
Small Icon
Image w/ just text
Moving image
Image w/ complex transparency i.e. curved lines or drop shadows
Image w/ simple transparency i.e. straight lines

If you have any specific questions or examples you’d like to ask about, don’t hesitate to ask!

1. Logo and Favicon: Designing a logo can be very difficult, but it is incredibly important. The logo will serve as a reminder to your user, wherever in your site they may be, that they are on YOUR site. Any print materials that reference the website should also have that logo to help your users with that association. If you are designing a logo yourself, try doing it in black and white first, then add color, because it should be able to stand on it’s own without color. Keep it simple too. Some of the most recognizable logos (like IBM or Apple) couldn’t get any simpler. Once you’ve done that, don’t forget to create a favicon! The favicon is that tiny 16×16 pixel icon that shows up in your favorites/bookmarks list, browser tabs, and sometimes the URL textbox too. To turn any square icon into a favicon, use this favicon generator. Then, include the following in your head:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="images/favicon.ico" />

2. Color Scheme: Picking a color scheme is really important for your branding. You want to select a small set of colors that remain consistent across your website, logo, and any print materials that are related to the website. I’d suggest first selecting a single color and then if it is easier for you, you can use color scheme generators that are available for free online. There are tons out there, but I’ve found a few for you here: Color Scheme Designer, Color Schemer, or Color Toy.

3. WWW Redirect: This phrase refers to how your website appears whenever you market it off the website, as well as the actual URL you actively use to point to your website. Any website can be written as both http://www.yourdomain.com OR http://yourdomain.com. Any user can type either one, and you’ll end up at the same place. However, it is important to select one and stick with it for two reasons. One, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post about SEO, I explained that search engines can actually see those two different URLs as two different websites, which reduces your traffic, which reduces your search results. Two, selecting one of these will help your users remember the site, and reduce any confusion with the less computer literate. FYI, here’s how you force your website to use the www version or the non-www version:

Insert the following into your .htaccess file:
The WWW Version (http://www.yourdomain.com):

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

The Non-WWW Version (http://yourdomain.com):

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.yourdomain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

In both cases, remember to replace "yourdomain" with your actual domain name.

Well, that’s all for now. Good luck!