bluehaus.com opinions on something

http://www.bluehaus.com/

The above web site is positively breathtaking. Do you suppose the graphics were made from photoshop?

So many intricate moving parts---the lines that look like guitar strings, or single spider webs... what format would you import into Flash to make those? They seem to have a transparent background... true? png? jpg? Made in PS or Flash itself?

Just wanted some expert opinions.

most of the lines are prolly made with flash itself. From an interface perspective this website is nothing more than a few movements that delay content and to be honest are a waiste of my time. The website's text is too small to read and it is really a shame as the site has some nice animations.

Anyhow, most of the graphics were done in an editor and yes Photoshop can do them all. From a design perspective I have learned that .png's work and look better in flash than any other format. But, .png's don't work as well on the web outside of flash (stupid IE messes the heck out of them).

You can find tutorials on how to create graphics like this on the web. As always, I suggest that you take these toturiols so that you can learn more about the programs themself. That way you can learn what all you can do with YOUR image editor.

The site is fairly pretty (that background graphic) but as JohnMitch said the usability of this site is limited. Almost all the text on the entire site is to small!

I also don't know about you, but what is the site trying to do?

The guy who made this is clearly talented, which just annoys me more because the site is so unusable.

Yeah, the lines are in Flash itself (definetly the moving lines, possibly all of them). The background graphic was done in Photoshop and the little content holders that appear were also done in Photoshop.

There's no real transparency here so this site could be using JPGs, but as JohnMitch said, it's a lot easier to use PNG files instead.

So is that a good rule of thumb then, to import as png instead of jpg? Along the line of 'lines,' on sites that have 'scratching' moving vertically... like old film scratches... are those done the same way, in Flash?

PNG is definetly a better format to import in yes. It's less fiddly, allows true transparency (which is awesome) and is generally of higher quality for marginally smaller filesize.

Okay, I remember your telling me months ago to use png over jpg. duh!.. I'm SO with it, huh?

Now, I resaved the image as png, but my friend came over last night and installed Fireworks... and now the png is associated with fireworks: is that supposed to happen?? I'm leaving it like that because Fireworks looks like an interesting program, though I've no idea what it does. Anna tried to explain it to me last night, but I was dead-tired and have no clue what she was talking about. hehe

Oh wow---okay---that didn't go well at all. I opened the jpg file, used "save as" png... and it looked terrible in Flash! I know there has to be something I'm doing wrong here because it should've looked good, at least as good as the jpg, right?

Png should have about 20 different file types.... make sure you save it in a file type that keeps it from losing its quality. Also, it's better to go from the original file than converting .jpg's to .png's, because all your doing is taking an image and resaving it (quality can only get worse). If you take it from the original file than it can be a good pic.

Ahhh. I didn't see any other options in PS (version 7) for saving a png. The original file is a jpg...hmmnn... no, I do have a psd file. I take that back. I'll try saving it with that instead.

Thank you. 8)

Ahh.. well you aren't saving it right! lol.... Save For Web then select the PNG (Im away at my grandparents or I'd look it up...) . Should be 8 bit, 16 bit, and 24 bit if I'm correct, and then you can save in all different kinds of formats. Rule of thumb on this saving technique is to save the lowest possible quality without messing up your image. Saving for web gives you a 100% preview of your image so it is great to see the quality change that will occur by the different types of saving.

Also, Photoshop 7 has found to be causing TONS of bugs on the web where people Save As... jpg and not Save For web.. Something to do with a security flaw.

Seems like I read something in one of the posts about that, something to do with saving in the ICC profile? I always use "save for web," though I didn't do that in PS because I was going to be bringing it into Flash where I thought it would be optimized there.