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Visual Quickstart Guide Macromedia Fireworks
by Steve Carmeli - February 18, 2002 at 19:10:26:
Written by Sandee Cohen Published by Peachpit PressI picked up Fireworks 4 because I got a coupon with my Dreamweaver UltraDev 4/ColdFusion 5 Studio which let me buy the program for $99 + s/h, instead of the usual $299. I already had a graphics program, PhotoImpact 6, but the coupon said that Fireworks integrates with Dreamweaver 4.
Since I had bad experience with the Dreamweaver manual, I decided I needed a third-party tutorial on Fireworks, because I assumed the Fireworks manual would be too dry and boring. After perusing Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble web sites, this book was the only one I could find that addressed the needs of a beginning user. I was reluctant to buy it at first because it had neither a CD with sample files nor a web site with sample files. But I felt that I should try it because it was only $18.99. The ads said that it taught by screen shots instead of text. I'd already used another book that relied heavily on screen captures and was pleased with that approach. Note that though the book claims to be for both Windows and the Mac, most screen captures were done on a Mac. Also, the Windows and Macintosh have different keyboard and menu command structures. Both are given Mac first. So, moving on to the review.
Chapter 1 covers the basics of minimum system requirements, installing the program, understanding what are called panels, which are like dialog boxes that stay on screen and allow you to create objects, select layers, optimize your file, and some configuration. It discussed the Window Elements (not related to the o/s), the text editor and other facilities that you'll access while using Fireworks. The book made an interesting observation about Fireworks: it produces both vector and bitmap graphics. My graphics experience was with Photoshop, which is strictly a bitmap program.
Chapter 2 discussed the basics of understanding and working with documents, using rulers, guides, magnification and display mode. There are two display modes: Full Display and Draft Display. Full Display shows all fills, brushes and effects. It gives you the best idea of what your printout will look like. The Draft Display mode just shows outlines, like a wireframe of stick drawing. This improves the speed with which your screen redraws.
Chapter 3 was all about colors. Fireworks has incredible control over colors. It has five color modes. They are: RGB, Hexadecimal, CMY (not to be confused with CMYK), HSB, and Grayscale. It has a swatch palette of Web-safe colors. All colors can be specified either by selecting from a swatch, by entering a numeric value for each component of a color or using the eyedropper. The book includes "Understanding" sidebars, which explain what is going on in terms of the different color models and why and when you'd select one model over another.
Chapter 4 discusses path tools. The author discusses the brush, pen and pencil tools. The brush tool paints in swaths of user-definable widths. After you're done drawing a closed-end object with the brush tool, you've created a path with points on it. Then you can specify characteristics of the line you've drawn. I calculate that between the patterns and gradients and textures, there's around 4,000 effects you can create so this program can easily keep you busy for a while. The book said that brush paths don't have anchor points but it looked like the object I created had points. I was able to select a point and modify the shape of the object I painted. The pencil tool draws paths without points while the pen tool can either draw points which Fireworks automatically connects or draw Bezier curves. Curves are tricky to draw. When you drag a point, a line appears which moves in a curve fashion in response to how you drag.
Chapter 5 is dedicated to selecting paths. It discusses selecting entire objects, points, objects behind other objects, controlling your selection and working with groups.
Chapter 6 is dedicated to working with objects. Among other things, Fireworks has four ways to copy an object: the first is the common Ctrl-C or Control-Insert; the second, third and fourth mystify me a bit in that I can't really see why they were created. The first command is called Duplicate. It just copies a selected object and places it a small distance away from the original copy. The second command is called Clone; it just places the copy on top of the original so you can't even visually tell a copy was made, you just know by knowing how to use the command. The fourth method is not even a menu selection. You place your mouse over a selected object and drag while holding down the Alt key. All these methods bypass the clipboard. Also covered in chapter 6 are methods of changing the shape of an object. There are three ways to change the shape of an object: scale, skew and distort. Scale retains the shape of an object and is just used to change its shape. You can change in one direction (up/down or left/right) or both directions at once by dragging on a point diagonal point. You can also rotate an object. One shortcoming I really wish Macromedia would've included is the ability to specify the angle of axis of an object by entering a numeric value. For example, if you draw a star, there's no way to have it point 90ø up.
Chapter 7 is dedicated to working with fills. Any object with a closed path can be filled. There are several ways to specify the color of a fill, as mentioned above with the color models. The web-safe swath is the default drop-down. There are 13 pre-defined gradient patterns and about 49 textures. You can edit the transition points of a gradient and save transition sets as a named gradient. But, as a tip warns you, the gradient is saved with the file. To make the gradient available to all documents, you have to use a style. Also, you can specify whether the pattern is hard-edged, has anti-aliased or feathered edge. So you have a lot of choice about how you present an object to your audience.
One lesson I keep learning with graphics programs: you can't really learn the program by just backing into it. For starters, it pays to know color theory. What is meant by Hue, Luminosity, Saturation and Brightness? While this book provides tips on using the program, it doesn't provide an introduction to color theory, and I suggest you'll need to know it in order to maximize your benefits from the program.
Well, that takes you up to chapter 7 of the book. It appears to be a good introduction to Fireworks. The combination of screen captures and sidebars makes the book more than a boring rehash of the manual. The author did include some tips along the way to help you use the program intelligently.
Finally, in the process of giving thanks, the author mentions two other Fireworks book which could serve as follow-ons: (1) The Fireworks 4 Bible, by Joe Lowry; and (2) Playing with Fire by Linda Rathgeber. Happy computing.?
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