Question for Gallery Designers
 

I am trying to make a gallery template. I am trying something new (for me). I want to make little windows for the thumbs, with a nice drop shadow or border or something. But how do I make the thumb empty (interchangable) while making the border static in Fireworks or Photoshop or Dreamweaver?

Any thoughts?

Please. Don't let this be another dead thread. Think of the children.

Set a bg in each thumbs table ?
I dunno im not designer but that may work.

No. I mean in the original design, like in Fireworks or Photoshop. Personally I prefer fireworks. I want the rest of the page to be static slices when I'm done.

Not exactly sure what you're asking, but if you're going to output the final thumb as a complete image with the dropshadow etc., then you would use "layers". Use 1 layer for your dropshadow/border, then other layers for each thumb.

I think I know what you're saying , but if my answer seems off , Im not .

Lets say you have your thumb and its 110x160 ,
You can make image just large enough around that to allow for your stroke and drop shadow ,

Then you slice the thumb out .
preset the size of your slice to the exact size of the thumbnail .

Export to html .
and then in your HTML editor you'll be able to remove that thumb and pop any thuimb in there if its the same size ,

Or you can make it expanding so you can use it for any thumb , but Im not gonna try to explain that in text .

THANK YOU. That's exactly it! You rock, my man.

That's what I was thinking. If I read you correctly Elli..... and... I think that I do...... you can make one image for the background that looks like a border.

Make a table for the thumbs, then set the background as that "window" image. Now you can place your thumbs in each cell of that table and your little background image will frame them. Set your table cell borders to zero, set your table cell spacing to 5 or so.

That should do it. Unless I'm reading you wrong.