: Is there a simpler solution than Photoshop for web development? During web development it's only really necessary to chop, crop, extract layers and save as PNGs, etc. A web developer will only

@RJPawlick971

If you're working with designers or a process that still relies on the passing of PSD files to you, then you want to still use PhotoShop, as you will likely want to tweak things as needed from a pragmatic standpoint (example, sometimes an image is using visual elements that you can better do in CSS, but still need a particular layer/'part' of the PSF file).

Ideally, PhotoShop wouldn't even be a part of the flow other than to ask for some icons or such.

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@Ravi4787994

Adam's right, Illustrator kills Photoshop for design development. But it's still not so hot for a developer just looking to slice and dice.

The best solution is to stay out of it.

Ask the team developing the design in Photoshop (or whatever) to export the graphic assets and provide general CSS instructions for all the other design details like standard colors/gradients and type settings that will be handled without graphics. If they don't know how to do that properly, you need new designers.

In the oft encountered imperfect world, you'll have to find a fallback.

If you're literally just slicing things for export, I'd recommend GIMP. Not because it's easier than P'shop (it's not) but it is free. That goes a long way toward easing the pain of not using the whole tool.

If you have to dig around in the layers and flip things on and off to get to the assets you need, I'm afraid you're stuck with P'shop. In that case, you could try requesting an export of the full PSD with extraneous layers turned off. Then you can get to the required background elements and stick with just a slice and dice approach.

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@Angela777

I was on the same page you were a month ago. I'd say my strongest skill-set is in Photoshop, but I switched to Adobe Illustrator to speed up my web design workflow.

I could summarize all the benefits that allows me to make speed a priority, but it wouldn't be nearly as complete as if you just read this from Smashing Magazine

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