Photoshop cs2 to dreamweaver 8

Question

I know this will be a very simple question for some people,
but am wondering if there is an easy answer to my question.
I am a graphic designer running creative suite 2 on the mac,
and although I am not totally stupid I still have issues with a few
basics. When I have for example my 800x600 psd/jpg file I have real
problems building it in dreamweaver. I have been told not to use
fireworks or photoshop's built in export to html/css (true/false?)
as it impliments bad code, and just to export the images and do the
rest in dreamweaver.
I don't really want to hand code the whole thing, not that I
could. But honestly what is the best way for me to do this? as
sometimes when I place the images in cells or tables the design
does not hold together (especially in safari). What is the best way
to keep sliced up images together. I can use css to style the page
no probs, but its just the basic structure I am really struggling
with. I feel once I get this basic problem sorted I will be flying
so any help would be really awesome
thanks for the help:

Answer 1

Actually, roundtripping in CS2 was quite good from what I
hear.
Since you mentioned not be comfortable with doing the hand
coding in Dreamweaver, I would consider two options:
1) Just do the page design in Fireworks and export for use in
Dreamweaver. Open Dreamweaver and finish your page. Remember that
you can designate specific spots as HTML or graphic (JPG/GIF) in
Fireworks. You get this by selecting the slice and specifying the
property for the slice (as either HTML or a graphic image). Open in
Dreamweaver to finalize your text elements. Pretty straightforward
and you don't have to worry about individual image breakups that
you are experiencing.
2) Get energized and determined that you are going to learn
to cut images individually and then bring them into Dreamweaver and
place them. Place them by placing your cursor in the code section
and hitting return in the code section, then add your next graphic
element. If you do it visually, you may often get spacing problems
from paragraph breaks, etc. You'll have to experiment and learn the
steps on this one, but that should get you going.
Hope that helps!
Take Care,
Chris