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Design Shack showcases inspiring web design, alongside resources and tutorials for you to succeed in the same way. It is carefully curated and edited by Josh Johnson and David Appleyard.
PSD2HTML Review
For several years, PSD2HTML have been the primary sponsor of Design Shack. We don’t like to suggest a service to you unless we have tried it ourself to ensure that it’s worth a recommendation. A recent addition to our network of sites, 13 Styles was in need of a redesign and I took the opportunity to use PSD2HTML’s service and document the process.
This article will be more than a straight forward review of PSD2HTML. We’ll be considering the basic idea of these type of services and considering when, and for who, they are appropriate. Honesty will be foremost, and I hope that you will gain a real insight into using a PSD to XHTML tool.
PSD to XHTML Services
PSD2HTML are one of the first companies to provide this service (you can see their original press release), but there are a huge number of competitors in the area today and a Google search for “psd to html” brings back over half a million results. Here is a table summarizing the main players in the industry (a more in depth list can be found at Most Sliced):
| Service | Price ($) | Time (days) |
| PSD2HTML | 153 to 211 | less than 24h |
| Slice ‘n Diced | 279 to 399 | 3-6 |
| The Choppr | 149 | 3 |
| XHTML iT | 119 | 1 day or less |
| XHTML Slicer | 200 to 350 | 1-3 days |
| XHTMLGenius | 250 | 3 |
| XHTMLized | 249+ | up to 7 days |
| We’llcodeit | 199+ | 3 |
We’ll be focusing on PSD2HTML, taking you through the process and showing you the final resulting design.
The Process
The ordering process at the site is very simple. There are several options available, starting with either a basic or professional package. We opted for the professional, as semantic, search engine friendly coding was a must have. Other optional additions are:
- Flexible width
- Stretching the header and footer
- Rollovers and dynamic menus
- sIFR flash replacement
- Commented CSS and XHTML code
- Load speed optimization
- Integration with CMS software (e.g. Wordpress, MT, Drupal, Blogger, CubeCart)
After submitting the order, we were contacted at the start of the following working day with a request to clarify some of the features in the submitted PSD file. By the end of that day, some 7 hours later, the markup was provided through their online ticket system. The speed of the turn around was incredibly impressive – it would take even an experienced designer far longer than 6 hours to code a relatively complex site such as the one we submitted. If you need results quickly, this service would seem to be a great resource.
Speed isn’t the only factor, however. We’re going to show you, in full, the code created by PSD2HTML for the new layout.
The Results
This is the original 13 Styles design:
And this is a screenshot of the new version which we created in Photoshop:
You can see the full website through the following link. It is essentially the exact code which we received back from PSD2HTML, and will still require customization before being integrated into the real 13 Styles site.
Please feel free to take a look and judge the quality for yourself. We found it to be great – well laid out with the correct separation of content and presentation and semantic coding. We aren’t incredibly easy to impress, but this was certainly not a rushed, second rate effort. The process takes web design to a level of ‘mass production’, and high standards can be achieved through having a huge catalog of code examples and snippets to work from.
Do We Recommend Them?
The service was fast, efficient, inexpensive and of an outstanding quality. PSD2HTML would definitely be worth considering if you:
- Are short on time
- Are a skilled designer, but not a coder
- Require high quality, semantic and valid code
- Want to have a personal, well trained contact creating the design
It can be argued that design does not come from the ability to write code, but rather the ability to create an intuitive user experience which is simple to operate and gives the desired message. Using a service such as this ensures that you are free to focus on these aspects without being bogged down in small issues such as cross browser compatibility.
PSD2HTML impressed us in every area when coding the 13 Styles site, and we would not hesitate to recommend using their service. Be careful, though, that you don’t lose the passion for crafting your own HTML and CSS.
That article just secured the sponsorship for another 12 months. Well done you!
Thanks for the comment. We wanted to provide an insight into this sector of services. All the CSS and XHTML they sent back is displayed, so you can judge for yourself whether they are any good or not. After looking at the code, what conclusion do you think you’d draw personally?
The code could be much cleaner and the images too. It isn’t a bad job to be fair and if i was ever in the position that i couldn’t cope with the amount of coding needing to be done i would use them.
Also 7 hours is good yes but it also could have been done much quicker. I myself could have coded that in around 1-2 hours without giving it a rush job.
Certainly a good idea for those with little time.
Too bad they can’t offer any advanced coding services.
Cool service that might come in handy someday. Nice design too :)
As a freelance HTML/CSS code myself, I often wonder how these online services can actual turnaround templates so quickly and so cheaply.
The quality of the HTML and CSS in your example is good. It’s not incredible, but it’s good enough and a lot better than the majority of websites out there.
They seem like a really good company. really good idea. Wish i’d though of it :p
Will, you’re kidding yourself if you think you could slice, xhtml and css that mock up bug free within 1-2 hrs.
For those interested, we have used PSD2HTML and other similar services in the past. Most of them are either 1-2 people shops or outsource work to India/Romania, which is OK as long as they deliver.
Honestly, I like PSD2HTML but I’ve found a better provider in xhtml.pixelcrayons.com with the very same quality but for a better price tag.
@nobody, I agree with you… These guys are gentlemen with their promises…
Those prices seem really high! PSD2HTML is the better of the bunch, but they are slow!!!!!
I have used codemyconcept.com, they are cheap – and code is pretty good. They only charged me like $70 or $80 bucks for a main page.
I think i agree with Terry. I also encountered a web design company http://www.webartsense.com they also offfered some of the work for PSD to XHTML for a resonable price of $70. I am also getting new web design done by them.
Yes psd2htm have been there for a long time. i use to see their adverts. I think they must be good but if you have smaller budget there are definately other options.
i’ve used http://xhtmlcandy.com/ once for a text pattern based website they were fast and affordable.
Well ive use them constantly on many high end website projects, i code CSS myself but i found i was really spending allot of time making sure my CSS was valid and the like. Since i outsourced all my layout needs to these guys ive been able to bring in more work and turnaround times have improved dramatically. As for ‘not bad CSS’ its 200% better than allot of my competitors, yes sometimes i wonder how they are slicing it up some weird techniques at times but at the end of the day its 100% validated code that is cross browser complaint (just having that added years on my life LOL) I would recommend them 100%
Check this:
http://www.psdtohtmlcompanies.com
They have a listing of over 100 psd to html providers. They offer search and compare feature to find the right provider and you can also send inquires to many providers instantly from the website itself.
Easy and clean Interface.
I have worked with couple of companies but recently I came across this company http://www.xhtmldevelopers.com and was pleasantly surprised with the kind of response they gave at times of sales and while developing my project. I would recommend more people to use their services.
Thanks for this great review. we have also collected a resource of 20 best PSD to HTML service providers on the basis of basic industry fundamentals like market reputation, brand popularity, quality of work, turnaround time and pricing. You can check the list at http://www.bestpsdtohtml.com/20-best-psd-to-html-service-providers/
Am trying to use these blog posts to recommend against Codemyconcept (www.codemyconcept.com). It seemed to good to be true, unfortunately it was in my case. The turnaround was fast but that’s about the only positive – the end result is problematic in IE6 despite me paying extra to ensure it works in that browser. They also missed elements of my design. Have emailed several times over the last week but no reply. Hope others avoid them :(
Just a follow-up to the above – I’ve finally heard back from the team at CodeMyConcept with a fix. Main thing is, they got it working. Still disappointed it took so long though. Will change my overall stance from above from avoid to use but ensure you are entirely happy before paying!
I found another easy and quite affordable way to get the photoshop designs sliced into pixel perfect CSS Markup.
You may want to visit this service at http://www.seo-semantic-xhtml.com
Prior to this I had been using psd2html, though they are good, but still they are bit expensive and slow.
Andrew
Even we provide Psd to Xhtml services..