Someone please answer me a question. Why do employers insist on Photoshop as a prerequisite for web design jobs?

I’ve seen this constantly. In fact the book Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte makes the same recommendation.

Has no one ever heard of Dreamweaver?

I get the point, of course. The idea is that a web designer can mock up a website idea in Photoshop and present it to the client. Easy-peasy.

Except that Photoshop layouts don’t necessarily translate into web designs. Photoshop can do lots of things HTML can’t. So you’re already operating as a loss. And besides, Dreamweaver can do anything web, and you can test the look on an internal webserver any time you like.

I suspect the issue is that a lot of people have Photoshop expertise, and maybe even own a copy of Photoshop. Dreamweaver is more of a niche product, designed strictly for the web. It’s expensive and not a lot of people own copies, much less have expertise in its use. (By the way, I only use Dreamweaver as the most widely known example of a HTML editor. There are, I’m sure, others.)

Another issue I find is that companies advertise for “web developers” but insist they have Photoshop expertise. “Web developers” shouldn’t be anywhere near the levers of design. “Web designers” are over there, and they design things. Developers implement what designers design. Two different areas of expertise.

Anyway, this is just a weird quirk of the industry, in my opinion.