Creating web graphics that load quickly and display flawlessly across devices is crucial. You might wonder, “But Why Gif?” when faced with optimizing images for the web. One powerful technique is image slicing, and Photoshop 2022 offers a streamlined approach to achieve this. This guide will walk you through the steps to slice images in Photoshop, ensuring your web content, including those engaging GIFs, are perfectly optimized.
First, open Photoshop 2022 (Release 23.4.1 on Windows 11) and create a new document. Set the dimensions to 960×960 pixels, choose a white background, and select 8 or 16-bit depth. For color profile, ensure you choose sRGB IEC61966-2.1 for optimal web display.
Next, divide your canvas into slices using guides. For this example, we’ll divide it into four equal slices. Drag a vertical guide to the 480px mark and a horizontal guide also to 480px. This will visually divide your 960x960px canvas into four 480x480px quadrants.
Now, select the Slice Tool, which is grouped with the Crop Tool in the toolbar. With the Slice Tool active, click the “Slice From Guides” button in the options bar at the top of the screen. Photoshop will automatically create slices based on the guides you’ve placed.
To export your slices, navigate to “File” in the top menu, then “Export,” and select “Save For Web (Legacy).” In the “Save for Web” dialog box, you might want to adjust the magnification to 50% or another comfortable viewing size to see all slices clearly.
Click on the first slice to select it, then hold down the Shift key and click on the remaining slices to select all of them simultaneously. Under the “Preset” dropdown menu on the right panel, choose “JPEG High” for a good balance of image quality and file size – ideal for web use and even when considering formats like GIFs that might utilize JPEG slices in their creation process. Double-check that the “Image Size” at the bottom still reads 960x960px, confirming you are exporting all slices correctly.
Click “Save” and choose a destination folder on your computer. In the “File name” box, delete any pre-filled text (which might mistakenly show a .gif extension) and enter your desired file name. Click “Save” again.
Navigate to the folder you chose. You will find four individual JPEG images, each precisely sized at 480x480px, perfectly sliced and ready for web implementation.
To verify the slicing accuracy and alignment, create another new 960x960px Photoshop document with a white background and the same color profile as before. Go to “File,” then “Open,” and select all four of the JPEG images you just exported.
Drag each of these opened JPEG images into your new white canvas document. Position each slice within the quadrants, using the guides as visual aids for perfect registration. Alternatively, instead of dragging and dropping, you can use “File” > “Place Embedded” for each slice.
Important Note: Maintain consistency in your method. Avoid mixing drag-and-drop with “Place Embedded” within the same project. While alignment might appear correct initially, using a combination could lead to subtle inconsistencies in color or saturation, particularly with embedded images appearing slightly desaturated or lighter/darker in specific tonal ranges. For consistent results and image fidelity matching the original, the drag-and-drop method is generally recommended when working with sliced images in this manner. This attention to detail is key whether you’re preparing assets for a website or even crafting elements for animated GIFs, ensuring visual harmony across your web projects.
