Preparing images for use on the web

- [Instructor] When it comes to preparing images for use on the web in teaching and learning, we have a unique set of needs. While we use the web extensively on multiple types of devices, we often do so within the confines of a system that is largely outside of our control, such as an LMS, or learning management system, a blog built on a platform, such as WordPress, or any one of dozens of different web based tools. It's fairly uncommon that we're designing whole sites from scratch, designing navigational elements, or managing complex responsive design sites.

We do need ways to prepare, manage, compress, and share a wide range of image based assets that creates a consistent and cohesive experience across a wide range of tools. Now, for teachers, you likely need to make this process as automated and as painless as possible, since you're likely teaching multiple courses per term or semester. Keeping your course pages always up to date and flush with fresh, new content is a great way to keep your students engaged with the course materials.

Now, for students, your projects are getting more and more complex and creating multiple, reusable assets is also an extremely high priority. Therefore, in this chapter, we're going to walk through a fairly advanced workflow to create this custom Photoshop template for creating multiple course or unit banner graphics that are appropriately sized for a variety of uses. The project is going to take you through many time saving tools, such as how to use artboards, smart objects, text, layer styles, and auto generating multiple files with a single click.

You'll likely find all of these tools and techniques extremely helpful in putting together your own web workflows.