Please help!

[ntedtao]

Hello Everyone!
This might make me sound like a complete idiot, but I'm going to ask anyways!

Ok, here's my situation. I would like to start building sites full-time, however I have no professional experience, and I've never taken any courses on Web Design/Development. I've designed a few sites using Yahoo Site Builder ( which I thought looked very sloppy), and I've also done a few using Photoshop and PsPpad. The sites that I've designed using Photoshop look professional and work well, and I was thinking about building sites for people using it (photoshop). Is this done? Or, am I way over my head? If so, what all should I be familiar with and know about Web Design/Development?

[jeremywilken]

Well you can DESIGN a site in photoshop, but you can't CODE a website in photoshop. You are going to need to learn a reasonable amount about web design/development before you can start full time.

I'm completely self taught, but trust me when I say its going to take some serious research/study to get a good foundation. You don't want to start making websites for people and realizing you don't understand how to do what they want. I'm not going to say you are way in over your head, but you are going to have to take a serious appraisal of the situation.

MUST KNOWS:
(x)HTML
CSS

SHOULD KNOWS:
JavaScript
Some server language (PHP,ASP,etc) with a database (MySQL, MSSQL)

There are a lot of resources on the web about how to learn these coding languages. Images should never make up an entire webpage. Just because you can switch a design from Photoshop to html with a program doesn't make you a web developer, it just makes you a visual designer. Think of it like running a car. You need to know all of the rules of the road in order to get around correctly (HTML, CSS), and knowing at least some about how the engine operates can help you improve the car (PHP, JavaScript). But if you just know what a good car LOOKS like, you can't necessarily drive it.

Way to be brave and ask the question. Taking the risk and starting to learn is really the only way you will be able to get into web development. I did a lot of sloppy work overtime, but learned from it. You can do it if you put yourself to learning the code which makes web sites really work.