for some reason my header image (.png) wont show in IE... neither do the images in the footer, not that i wanted them there anyway
Hmm... 3 possibilities come to mind: 1) Bad alpha transparancy. 2) Unknown encoding type (common with some photoshop created .png) 3) Overzealous adblocker (I get that from time to time in Opera) My advice, grab another paint program like Gimp or Paint Shop Pro, load the image, resave it, and see if that fixes it. I keep Paint Shop Pro around because it still has the best image optimization and filesize reduction capabilities of anything else I've tried.
I don't think IE supports transparent pngs. If you right click on the image in firefox and choose properties, it says it's a png image. But if you right click in IE and view the properties, it says it's a jpg (and a jpg of that name does not exist) It doesn't need to be a png. Since the image is essentially solid, make it a gif and your problem is solved.
How familiar are you with Photoshop? I'm not aware of anything that Paint Shop Pro does that Photoshop doesn't. It would be good to know if there are things that are unique to Paint Shop Pro. Can you tell me?
In terms of DESIGNING art, Photoshop wins hands down - howerver it is a VERY VERY big program, and in a lot of cases it's a sledgehammer on a fly. PSP is much leaner, faster loading, etc.... but is lacking in some of the functionality (though it can these days run photoshop plugins) The only real advantage is image optimization at save time. When you do a "Save As" there's a 'options' button, under the screen that pops up is "Run Optimizer" In there you can choose a whole slew of options from encoding styles, palette selection, palettized transparancy, (IE 6 and earlier supports PALETTE transparancy in .png, it does not support ALPHA transparancy), color depth - and shows you ON THE FLY the file size your choices are saving, so you can switch back and forth. I keep all my master images in Jpeg2000 lossless, but save for web projects as either .png, .gif or .jpg, whichever one PSP lets me make the smallest file in. In that one department, it's WAY out in front of Photoshop on efficiency and capability... in fact, when it comes to making the most efficient and small image file, photoshop is a tinkertoy... unfortunately when it comes to most everything else, photoshop edges ahead. Which is why I use BOTH.
As far as png's go, isn't the only real advantage that fact that it supports partial transparency? How often is that used in the web? Not often, and when it is, it usually turns out that it should be merged in photoshop, not via placing one image on top of the other on the page. Wouldn't you agree or am I missing something?