Fireworks 3.0

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Customer Reviews:

Fireworks is a complete Web graphics tool ... [Posted on 2000-05-17]
I have used Adobe Photoshop for more than ten years, first for pre-press layout and design, and then for Web graphics starting in the mid-1990s. Back then, Photoshop was primarily a pre-press tool, and best for manipulating photographs. To make an image Web-ready, one had to use a separate utility or plug-in. Over the years, things improved. The current version of Photoshop, 5.5, is as much as Web tool as it is software for pre-press.

When it was time to upgrade Macromedia Dreamweaver from version 2 to version 3, we purchased the "studio" upgrade that included Fireworks. I had seen a demo of Fireworks at a trade show, and was impressed enough to give it serious consideration, at least for specialized tasks such as creating complex Web page layouts and animations.

That was five months ago. Photoshop and Fireworks are both installed on my computer, but I now use Fireworks for Web graphics about 80% of the time.

Fireworks was designed from the ground-up as a Web design tool. Macromedia has obviously looked at competing Web graphics programs and adopted existing "best practice" in its software. The result is a tool with amazing range.

Fireworks facilitates a number of Web design processes that I had been using in Photoshop. For example, for more complex designs I would often do the entire layout in Photoshop, then slice the image up and dump the pieces into my HTML editor. To make this common practice easier, Fireworks has a slice tool and a Web layer; slices can be exported as individual graphics with accompanying HTML. Fireworks shines in a number of other areas as well: JavaScript rollovers, GIF animation, graphics optimization, object effects, and vector graphics.

For beginners, Fireworks has a number of features to make graphic creation easier: the Button Editor makes creating rollovers quite easy, and the Style panel allows the creation and reuse of graphic characteristics.

Fireworks is a great tool, and I recommend it.

Simpler than Photoshop, and more useful! [Posted on 2000-07-02]
Fireworks is a fantastic web graphics tool, built from the ground up to produce all those little mouseovers, animations, etc. that need to go on a page. It's image editing tools are more useful to a web developer than say Photoshop (because it's targetted specifically for the web developer), and it carries some very good image compacting/optimising tools. Mouseovers are particularly simple - and Fireworks will not only make this easy, it will insert the working code back in your web development program to make the mouseover work. Similar thing goes with clickable images - just slice up the image however you like in Fireworks and when you export it, Fireworks will write ALL the supporting TABLE code to lay it out and make it clickable. It's a nice touch!

Probably the only annoying thing about Fireworks is that it insists on storing it images internally in PNG format - to get GIFs or JPGs, you have to Export, not Save. However, because this maintains image quality far better than a JPG, you'll be glad it does this eventually.

All in all, Fireworks let you concentrate on the picture, not the details - it takes care of all the "little things". I think it's the best you can get on the market these days - and although it is steeply priced, it far better value in the Dreamweaver 3/Fireworks 3 bundle.

Simply The BEST! [Posted on 2000-07-29]
This product is simply the best graphics creation software for web development i have ever used. I used to use Photoshop/Imageready, but i don't even touch these products anymore. The rastar/vector capabilities leave it really non restrictive. Definite BUY!

If you only by one program for web graphics, this is it! [Posted on 2000-08-31]
Fireworks has turned out to be my best friend when it comes to any kind of web-based graphics manipulation. It is absolutely the quickest and easiest for producing photos and thumbnails.

Recently we've been putting large numbers of photos online for our members use-- I mean "hundreds". With Fireworks "batch processing" function, it takes just a few steps to manipulate the dimensions, the quality, etc. for the entire group. That means, in a few minutes you can produce 100 digital photos adjusting the resolution for easy viewing and downloads as well as instantly create thumbnails.

Fireworks also has good photo editing capabilities. I come to Fireworks from using Adobe and Corel graphic applications and have come to love this one.

This is definitely a program that should be a mainstay in your library.

Web graphics, here I come! [Posted on 2000-09-21]
I'm a happy man now. Ever since I got into the web dev business I cursed the hours I sat infront of my computer, trying to figure out how to shade or mask the simplest text in Photoshop. I used to waste precious hours over the simplest things instead of concentrating on the actual programming. One starry night I found myself snooping around for some easier way to handle professional graphics (a paradox? you betcha!), I came accross the demo version of Fireworks 1.0 (it was a long time ago)... it was love at first sight. Imagine a programs so easy to use that I was able to produce some very professionaly looking graphics in matter of minutes, and perform some of the more complex and time consuming tasks (slicing, image maps, HTML exports etc) in the shortest time. Version 3.0 adds more features at no cost of ease of use, more plug-ins and more preset design samples. I'm never installing Photoshop again!

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