web layout help

i know html fairly good but im not really used to website designing. ive been wondering how you guys, asumming most of you have, do it? do i just make 1 big picture with everything besides text and buttons or do i make graphics for each frame if i use any? also if its just 1 big picture what would the size of it be?
Thanks, Jason

1 big picture. Then you take out the marque tool and take out the elements that you need. Then you use CSS and HTML to put the images together. Thats just the gist of it. I recommend you read some tutorials about it, thats how a lot of us got started. Most of the tutorials out there suck, but they'll get you started. Pretty soon you'll get so comfortable with what you are doing, that you start to form your own procedures and skill set, and you depart from the tutorials. Thats when the real fun begins.

sweet i though it was going to be like tons of frames and all this complicating stuff. 1 big pic aint bad compared to what i thought. any tutorials youd recommend?

Wow, I'm guessing your a complete beginner at web coding. Frames and HTML Tables are very old skool. Also using 1 big picture is not good at all, first of all it will takes ages to code, and most of it will be block colour which you dont need to have as a images. What i would do is look at the source of some sites and learn how they are coded and then learn about tables. Then have a look at css, this is what you wanting to be coding with.
Also You posted in the wrong forum

Hmm, let me clarify something. Are you talking about designing each individual element and then 'slicing' it. Or when you design it should be 1 image in Photoshop, then you 'slice' it up? To be honest, this question is so elementary I don't think I understand what you're asking.

well i just want to know HOW you guys out here make websites? i cant really explain but do you make a background and then put stuff in like boxes on the main page of this site(there on the home page and there on the left if you dont know what im talking about)

We make websites by making a layout in photshop or something else and code it using coding languages such as css and html. I think you need to look at some tutorials and learn HTML and how to slice a layout. www.pixel2life.com is a great place to start
Enjoy

ill start looking at some of those layout tutorials. i know how to use photoshop, but not like a pro or anything. I just dont know how html+photoshop=webpage. ive went through ALL the beginner and half of the Intermediate articles on w3school for html a while back. thanks...that site looks pretty good!

Try this resource:

http://www.csslicingguide.com/guide/stage_1.html

This site explains in detail how to slice and code a design in css/html.