Week 6 tutorials

This week's tutorials focus on implementing web design techniques including texture. The Photoshop tutorial on creating textures was extremely interesting:
http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/design/photoshop-tutorials-textures/

I like Photoshop's usability. I've had to utilize Photoshop in my web site project to reduce photo sizes because the photos were making the page loading time take too long. Photoshop tutorials are essential, though, because otherwise it can be challenging to navigate. This tutorial has excellent methods for designing different texture backgrounds. While I don't think texture is appropriate as a background on a professional website (usually), I do think that texture elements help enhance the design of websites and help add to the technical appeal of the site.

Web 2.0 tutorial: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/10/web-20-tutorials-round-up/

This tutorial has some interesting input on design and texture, but again, they aren't necessarily that great for professional sites because they are mostly decorative or patterned. I think on a professional site, texture should be utilized in the navigation menu and maybe the banner but not directly on the background. Maybe I'm old fashioned?