Hpw'd they do that?

i think this comes down to ability, and i'm saying that as someone who has none :)

Mainly, when working in Flash i prepare the look in photoshop, export it out as a png, and import that into Flash. However, when you finally publish the results aren't always great and the image will suffer from recompression. A workaround i use is i stll work in Photoshop, then bring in the arkwork and duplicate the import bitmap in vector form. I'm finding just with everything else, that the best results come from just plowing through it and not being afraid to keep adding detail.

I made two movies based on each technique and found that i was not only unhappy with the image quality of the photoshop one, it was also significantly larger than the Flash vector method.

Just my two penneth...

Quincy

http://www.qcit.com

Ok, I went ahead and used Image ready to create my table. I read somewhere I should't do any linking in Image Ready, because when you export it as SWF it won't be included. So how can I get this file in Flash, and add my navigation? I can't seem to find a tool such as (slice) to create my hotspots around my buttons.
The more I think about it, should I have created my buttons in Flash?

I have the option of Importing all of the Image Ready Layers? Is that what I should do?

Thanks,
Mike A.

Hi Mike

Sorry, that post was the last internet activity i had - our servers went down so spent most of yesterday twiddling my thumbs. Back now at least.

Ok,, first off, when i talked about converting, i meant i was converting by eye. I feel 'creatively' more free in Photoshop, so i'd prepare an image that way, then simply save and import into Flash. Then reproduce the result - probably not the best work flow, but it works for me. The reason i use .png files is because they include an alpha channel, seem lossless and you can export using the Save for Web feature.

I've never really ventured near Illustrator, although my colleague does use it quite a bit. Importing that way is certainly possible, and she recently experimented using Illustrator bmp to vector converter for just that.

Never used Image Ready either, i stick with Photoshop, and you're right, Flash won't take slices. But if you are reproducing the page, then you simply make your button images into button and define the hotspots with the button own layers.

You've got a nice background there and seem ready to go. Basically, you just need to decide how you're going to do your buttons. If i were you, i'd create new layer, draw a box over the top of a button, convert that box to a button, double-click on it to access its layers and move the keyframe completely over to the hit state. That's an invisible button. Coming out of there, you can now preserve your image and just use copies of that invisible button whereever you need.

Hope that helps

Graham


http://www.qcit.com

Ok, first of all, if you export the whole Photoshop file as one graphic, that's a mighty big graphic! However, yes save it as a PNG.

After importing the file into your library, double-click on the bitmap in the library and deselect the JPEG option. This way, it's lossless...meaning, it won't look any different from the way it does in Photoshop.

By default, bitmaps are exported with the jpeg compression set in the Publish Settings box. That's why so many don't get the smooth graphics they expect by using PNG...which is lossless. Because Flash converts them to jpegs when that box is clicked.

Next, if you want any visual interactivity in Flash (Like rollovers) you have to make those in Flash. But, if you've got the slices in ImageReady, just export the page as web page and then import each slice into the Library. Make each state a graphic.

Create a new button and put each graphic in the appropriate state. However, the best thing would be to put the type itself in Flash so that you're only creating one actual button with just graphic backgrounds and then duping that and adding the appropriate text (About us, Contact Us, etc) as needed as that will decrease your download time since you will be loading less data.

So, remove the text from ImageReady, save out the stages, import those into Flash, make them each a graphic (new symbol-graphic then paste a graphic in) and do that for the three states. (The HIT area doesn't need an actual graphic, just draw a box at the size you want for the hit area). Then, create a new-symbol, button and put the appropriate graphic in each state.

Next, on a different layer in the button symbol, add your type.

Hope this helps