How do you think of your designs?

I have seen some people who litterally make a picture of their site in frontpage before even touching flash. I have seen others who just open flash and write what comes to them. What do you guys do?

O and by the the way, is Photoshop good for creating images from scrape like buttons or should I use something like Illustrator.

I also just wanted to say sorry for posting so many questions but I really want to learn. Thanks

Mike