Optimization Help!!!

Ok here's the story.
I'm working on a personal website related to mortgages. I'm using a template that came with PSD's (photoshop files) and have edited them to my liking.

Obviously search engines arent going to be able to search anything if the site is full of images.

So I've attempted to save the PSD's for the web and then open the html files with Dreamweaver to manually add the text. The problem with this is that I can't get the layers I'd like in the background, the text doesnt look as nice, it takes forever to make the tables work and etc.

There has to be a better approach that I'm possibly just not noticing. If anyone can think of a way to make my life easier I'd appreciate a response.

Thanks!

Rule #1. avoid text as images where ever possible.

store the image as a background image af an html element.

ie,

Code:

<style>
h1 { background: url(some.jpg) no-repeat; }
</style>

<h1>text here will have a background on it</h1>

If you MUST use text on the image, consider using one of the many image replacement techniques: mezzoblue *§* revised image replacement

90% of the template you have is probably useless garbage. I say that because you can optimize the template so much more using css and proper html. using a 100x 10 image that repeats down a left nav bar is MUCH more efficient than a 100x600 image that doesn't repeat.

i'm available for free lance work if you need help. send me a pm.