Front End Testing With Adobe Photoshop and PerfectPixel

This article is concerned with the analysis of particular tools that are used during the testing of the website coding.

We are talking about the verification of the conformity of the deployed website design and its layouts. In general, the layout is a way in which the website will be arranged after coding.

Adobe Photoshop and PerfectPixel

The specific feature of any website is its interface. The time that the user spends on the site depends on the first impression from this site. He/she can stay there or leave it searching for new, more interesting, practical, and easy-to-use site.

When web designers create external parameters of the future website, they work on its interface and draw the layout to the last detail. Therefore, developers have to implement designers’ ideas.

In most cases, when site owners or clients give the technical requirements, they specify what things are necessary for complete matching of the design layout and interface. That’s why specialists pay much attention to the testing of the webpage interface.

Testing With Adobe Photoshop

Even if you never edited pictures, you have probably heard about Adobe Photoshop. This application is a powerful tool that is used by professional photographers, qualified designers, and testers.

When you perform front end testing, Adobe Photoshop is a necessary element that cannot be gone unheeded. This application can compare the current version of the site with its initial layout.

Below you can find the algorithm of layout implementation in Adobe Photoshop with the help of which you can easily find and describe all the defects.

1. Install Adobe Photoshop on your computer.
2. Start the program, then open the website layout (file should be one of the following formats: PSD, JPEG, or PNG).
3. Open the site in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Take a screenshot of the page and open it in Adobe Photoshop.
4. Overlay the webpage with this screenshot (press Ctrl), click on the layer with the screenshot and copy it by clicking Ctrl+C.
5. Paste copied screenshot to the Layers panel (Ctrl+V). Choose the level of transparency (for example, 80%).
6. Equalize the resolution of the screenshot and layer.
7. Compare the location of the elements.

Using PerfectPixel During Front End Testing

When you perform front end testing, don’t forget about PerfectPixel too. This program can compare the developed website interface with the original graphical image.

1. Open the page in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
2. Install browser plug-in PerfectPixel and open it by clicking on the special icon in the top right corner.
3. Upload the source code of the website by clicking the “Add your first layer” button.
4. When the layer is uploaded, you’ll see that one layer overlapped another one: the original layer and the site developed in the image of this layer. In this way, you can see all the defects, mismatches. And of course, you can compare the location of all the elements on the page. Also, it is possible to make one layer more transparent than another one, bring them to front, or invert colors.

To Sum Up

In conclusion, we can say that Adobe Photoshop and PerfectPixel are tools that help to detect different bugs such as font mismatching, different sizes of blocks, different colors of website components, lack of some details, etc.

If you need to conduct front end testing in a quick and qualitative way, then these programs may become your main assistants.