The slice tool is a feature available with the full version of Adobe Photoshop. It allows you to select portions of an image in order to optimize it for the web. Elements 7 is a less expensive, scaled-down version of Photoshop. As such, it does not include the slice tool. However, the program allows users to optimize content for the web in other ways.
Function
- The slice tool allows you to draw boundaries around items in an image. The content within these boundaries becomes a "slice." You can adjust certain properties of each slice, such as its dimensions and color table. This enables you to save each slice as a separate file and to customize each file so it consists of as little data as possible. You can then use these files to build a website that will load much more quickly than it would if it consisted of a single large image.
Alternatives
- While Elements 7 does not come with the slice tool, it has a "Save for Web" option. Choosing this option opens a dialogue box that allows you to change the properties of an image so that it will load quickly when viewed on a web browser. Using this option, you can optimize each file you want to upload to the web separately, achieving a similar result as you would if you used slices.
Using Save for Web
- The Save for Web window displays two versions of your image: the original image and the optimized image. To the right of these is a menu offering a series of adjustments to help you decrease the image's file size. These adjustments include resolution, image proportions, image size and file type. When you make an adjustment, the optimized image display shows you what the image looks like as a result, and the number of bytes the image requires. You can then compare this to the original image to help you preserve as much quality as possible, while reducing the number of bytes.
Limitations
- The slice tool offers you the convenience of designing a web page in Photoshop as you'd like it to appear on the web, letting you see the web page as a whole before you break it into separate pieces. Although Elements 7 can optimize images for the web, it doesn't allow you to view and work on your web page as a whole. For this reason, you may want to tweak and redesign once you combine files from Elements 7 into a single web page for the first time.
