So if you come back to a design file a year later in order to update some of the graphics, you can use the original slices in order to make sure the graphics are cut out exactly like they were when the website was originally developed.
You can hide the slices so that you don't see all the slice path outlines, show the slices when you need them, and you can lock the slices, which is usually a good thing to do to ensure you don't accidentally move the slices around. This makes the slice paths easy to find, and allows you to maintain the exact dimensions of all the graphics that were originally cut out of the file. In Illustrator you can make a Slice Layer and have all your slice paths under that layer. The best part is that the slices are saved in the file, so you have a record of it. That is the sole purpose of slices, to carve the graphics out in rectangular pieces from the design file. Basically, you use the Slice Tool to draw out rectangles (paths) over the graphic area you wish to cut out of the design.
In Illustrator, using the Slice Tool allows us to cut the design up in the necessary puzzle pieces. In order to make a website, you have to cut the design up in pieces sort of like a puzzle and then cleverly put it back together using HTML and CSS. I prefer Illustrator slices because in my opinion, they are easier to work with. Of course, just like with most of the other tools Photoshop and Illustrator have in common, the Slice Tool works a bit differently in Photoshop than it does in Illustrator. Both Photoshop and Illustrator have a Slice Tool (formerly called "Knife Tool"). Instead, it's a neat tool for cutting a design up in smaller bits. Glad you asked! Okay, so obviously the slices I'm referring to have nothing to do with bread. But What About Slices? What Are They Anyway? This can really be a problem when you have to go back to the design file and figure out where and how something was cropped originally, because sometimes it is not so easy to get it to match up. Because with that method, there is no record of where the graphic elements were cut out of the design. This scenario demonstrates the problem with the old Photoshop crop and undo method. One solution may be to save the logo out as a transparency, but what if that's not an option? Because in some situations it won't be an option for one reason or another. If you crop the logo out of the design and you're just one pixel off, it will show because the gradient will not match up. In order to have the gradient line up when the logo is replaced, you need to know exactly where the logo image sits on the background. This can especially be troublesome if the logo sits on a gradient background. This should be a simple change and will be if there is a design file with a slice path for the logo graphic. A basic example of this would be that the company logo has been updated and the new version of the logo needs to replace the current logo image on the site. I have had to make updates to websites that required updating the graphics. There are bigger issues than simple file organization and naming. The Old Photoshop "Crop & Undo" Doesn't Cut It This really isn't an option, at least it shouldn't be. Trust me, it always helps to find things in the file if the layers, groups, and slices are well organized and named accordingly. Some design files can have 80+ layers containing hundreds of graphics and things can get pretty complex. Just because you know how everything works in the design file, does not mean when the client asks for a change months later that someone else will be able to come behind you, open the file, and be able to clearly discern where everything is and how it's organized? Will you remember months down the road? I can tell you from experience that if things are not organized and named well in a design file, the answer to that question is an emphatic "No". It wastes a lot of time and can be very frustrating. Trying to sort through it in order to make a simple update is like a guessing game. In the past, I have had to deal with badly organized design files where nothing is in any particular order, nothing is named appropriately, and there are no slices. Let me start off by explaining the bigger picture a bit and why this issue is worth writing about in the first place. To Slice or Not to Slice: What's the Big Deal?
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