Hi,
Went for a job interview today and needed to know fireworks?
Is it faster than photoshop?
What are advantages to using it over photoshop and or illustrator
what is the standard for designing attractive vectors for awsome websites??
Can someone please help??(:
Some web designers prefer Illustrator/Photoshop, others Fireworks, but really either is very powerful for web development. Fireworks has a few handy features for web development (apparently some slightly better ‘save for web’ options, for example) but TBH, I don’t use it at all, as I don’t feel I need it, and it’s just another thing to learn. I’ve never needed anything from Fw that Ai/Ps couldn’t do.
I use all of them. =p
I find they have different purposes because of their differences.
Photoshop is good for… photoshopping. =p It’s a raster-based program and it’s good at doing the really fancy graphics it’s able to create. Some people use it for designing websites, but I don’t like using it for it (for a reason I’ll list below).
Illustrator is vector based. It’s good for logos and other things that you need to scale. Some people use it for laying out their websites, but not many. I find it ill-suited for that task.
Fireworks is also largely vector-based, though it has some raster (bitmap) tools as well. I love this for doing my website prototypes. The reason is because the shapes are easier to change sizes of, since it’s vector-based. I can just directly change it and see it’s value. I can also change it’s size based on pixels. Photoshop makes it tricky to do this because you have to use the transform tool. Illustrator is better at that, but it’s awkward in other regards.
I recently introduced our designer to it at work. I’m not sure if she has used it much or not… she’s pretty pro with using Photoshop since that’s what she’s used to using.
I personally find Fireworks to be faster. I generally lay out the website in Fireworks, then any special effects that I can’t do in Fireworks, I hop over to Photoshop, create it there (or in Illustrator for things like logos), then pull it into Fireworks with the rest of my layout.
For your own purposes, it’s really personal preference.
However, for a job with a company, it seems like more and more are adding Fireworks to their wish list, so it’s probably good to learn. It’s pretty simple to pick up if you’re familiar with any other modern graphics program.
I’ve never needed anything from Fw that Ai/Ps couldn’t do.
So ,
from a web design point of view… Fw = Ai+Ps ??
if i could just use the one program that would be a huge advantage wouldn’t it?
Not quite. Each has things the others can’t do.
For example, since Photoshop is raster-based, it has WAY more filters than the others do (since their filters are vector-based).
Illustrator is best for doing things like logos, since it’s vector based and all of it’s tools are focused on vectors.
Fireworks is kind of a hybrid, but doesn’t have everything that either of the other to do.
My vote is for all three. =)
I use all of them. =p
Thanks samanime just what i was looking for! 
Matter of preference and what you’re using it for. There are plenty of illustrators who prefer Fireworks over Illustrator. The power of Fireworks is often overlooked. It’s perfectly sufficient for most illustration tasks. If I didn’t find the working with it so awkward, I’d have ditched Illustrator in favor of Fireworks, but alas, both Illustrator and Fireworks are horrible to work with, though the latter is even worse, so I’ve opted for the former out of mere comfort. Here’s a designer who (I think) uses Fireworks almost exclusively for his illustration work. If you visit his blog, you’ll find some tutorials on how to use the app.
thanks for the link
I gotta be hones I’ve never used fireworks for anything. I use photoshop to build my website designs and illustrator for logos and such. Even though I have fireworks installed it’s never even been started on my computer. Somehow the whole concept of using it to make something is completely unnatural for me lol.
P.S. all this talk about it finally made me start it and see what fuss is all about
Photoshop can not be compared with Fireworks, please guys photoshop is the best and it will remain for many years.
Photoshop and Fireworks do different things.
It’s like comparing apples to headphones…
thanks,
off topic a little :)…Do you know anything about best coding practices with HTML and CSS?
I do, along with quite a few other smart people on Sitepoint. =)
do you know of a reliable link to help a noobie out
This could be a good place to start: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/html-xhtml-52/frequently-asked-questions-about-html-428205.html
Though you’re probably better off picking up a book, like the The Ultimate HTML Reference - SitePoint Books and [url=http://www.sitepoint.com/books/cssref1]The Ultimate CSS Reference - SitePoint Books.
Thanks heaps , extremely helpful
That’s awesome and it was right here! Do you know of a similliar one for CSS ??
Every forum here has sticky threads at the top with useful tips and resources, such as this (in the CSS forum):
thanks very much:D
Isn’t Fireworks geared more towards novice users ie: those who never used photoshop. LOL
Photoshop is the standard, you can use whatever tools you need to get the job done.