Originally Posted by UWTELECOM

start by getting a good web design tutorial and training from the billions out there online

Definitely agree. The more tutorials you try out, the more you learn what tools and what techniques work best. Back when I first started, I would do every tutorial out on the web to see what every feature of Photoshop does.

Originally Posted by cantletugo

Definitely agree. The more tutorials you try out, the more you learn what tools and what techniques work best. Back when I first started, I would do every tutorial out on the web to see what every feature of Photoshop does.

Better choice will be, that one should buy the CD of "Learn Photoshop" available just everywhere.

Originally Posted by talksfour

Better choice will be, that one should buy the CD of "Learn Photoshop" available just everywhere.

Not true. I learned how to use photoshop 100% on my own. I just played with the program.

Initially you can start with HTML or Dreamweaver. W3schools is the best online tutorial available you can get refer that for any queries..

Html and dreamweaver (you can learn about html in dreamweaver) should be your first step. After you manage to get the basics, i recomend that you go to basics of php and start using Wordpress.

I would suggest creating a website on your own. it'll be crappy in the first version but you'll learn all kinds of things doing so. Practice makes perfect. You can just google for 'web design' and you'll find lots of results. Or you can just visit webdesign.org or any other site of that sort.

i dont know but i first learned html.. took about a week to learn most things

after that i learned css slowly. i learned the basics of it first. after that i would look at free templates and learn the techniques and stuff..

after that i wanted to create better websites! so i bought photoshop and designed my sites from there.. at first they were pretty ugly. after a few years they are somewhat decent now.. still not very good at it, i'll admit.

now it's time to turn the design into a real website... looked at a bunch of psd to html tutorials and couple years after i've somewhat mastered the process. this is my favorite part of web designing. the hard part for me is coming up with a good design in photoshop.

then of course once the site is in html/css/javascript you can decided if you want to integrate it into cms's such as wordpress or joomla.

Originally Posted by DayliDesign

I'm assuming since you put PHP that your going to be coding so I would suggest learning the basics first:

HTML and CSS. The newest and semi-standard being HTML5 and CSS3.

Learning code by hand is very useful before you think about design. LOTS of problems occur if you don't know how to quickly diagnose and fix those problems.

Always choose Dreamweaver CS5, i have used only that software since its a remarkable and a reliable one. I have experienced lots of benefits with Dreamweaver. Its good for you to start up with it.

A $400 piece of software that doesn't do much to teach you how to design or code is probably not the best thing to start with.