Conventions and good practices for PSD

Dear designers! Here are a few recommendations towards a better style in Photoshop documents.

1. Separate layers as much as possible: for example, a button and its label should be in separate layers. This simplifies the task of the layout programmer who is to take out the button (an image in the web page) and outputting the label text above.
2. Type your text: what is to be text in the HTML code is to be a Type layer in Photoshop. The programmer can then see the colour, type face, and font-size and will have to spend less time on HTML thus making fewer mistakes. It makes sense to rasterize or turn in curves text that belongs to static and purely graphical elements such as logos, especially when you use non-standard fonts.
3. Name layers in a sensible way: “News button bgnd” makes much more sense than “Layer 42″.
4. Group layers into sets with meaningful names - thus they are easier to take out to produce individual graphics elements. For instance:
   News button
   • button background
   • T News
5. Colour your sets – life comes in many colours! It’s not all black and white or grey.