{"id":1600,"date":"2012-04-05T00:11:06","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T22:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.railsware.com\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2024-12-06T16:41:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T13:41:25","slug":"from-photoshop-to-fireworks-and-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/from-photoshop-to-fireworks-and-back\/","title":{"rendered":"From Photoshop to Fireworks and back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hi, my name is Andrey and I’m a Photoshop addict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photoshop<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It’s been my weapon of choice for 12 years, but why not to have two guns in your holsters instead of one? Adobe has plenty of tools in the box and it’s up to you to decide which one is the right to do the job. And it’s better to choose the proper one, not the familiar one. Yes, you can still make some not-so-complicated print stuff in Photoshop, but InDesign suits is better for it. You can create vector graphics in it, but Illustrator is more powerful. As I have mostly created UI design for the last few years now I’m feeling like a roofer that uses a carpenters hammer completely ignoring the existence of a nail gun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fireworks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fireworks was created for web design as it’s always been, but now it requires less effort to switch to it from Photoshop and it became more stable as it never was. I’ve tried it previously when it was a Macromedia product and it struck me as very flimsy and almost unusable comparing to Photoshop. I never dug deep enough in it then, but the first impression was: “Why the hell this thing exists and who is using it anyway? Flash — cool, Freehand (RIP) — awesome, but what is Fireworks for when you can use Photoshop?”. Now the answer is clear — if you are doing a lot of wireframing, have more than, say, 3 pages in your project and going to iterate back and forth for dozens of times (we are all hoping to have a home run from the first try, but let’s face the facts) it’s the right tool for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one left behind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“But what about my beloved Photoshop?”, you ask. Should I stop using it? One thought about giving up my old friend makes me cry! Well, you shouldn’t. No withdrawal is coming, my fellow addicts — you can have your Photoshop fix whenever you want and use Fireworks right after or vice-versa if you are doing everything right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what’s next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the next few paragraphs I’m going to show you not how to switch to Fireworks, but add this tool to your arsenal and enhance your design firepower by holding it next to Photoshop in the other hand. There are quite a few articles around comparing PS and FW (1<\/a>, 2<\/a>, 3<\/a>, 4<\/a>, 5<\/a>) and I’ll try not to write another one and just focus on practical hints of PS to FW transition assuming that you’ve already made your choice and decided to try Fireworks without saying farewell to Photoshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting up<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I’m going to use Photoshop CS4 and Fireworks CS5 and hope there will be no significant differences if you are using other versions. Also, my way around PS could be different from yours, so please don’t take any of my advise as immediate call to action, be flexible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concept<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What I’m trying to do here is to get most of our PS experience to FW. Since we are not switching to FW completely — I’d recommend you not to use FW features full throttle yet, at least not all of them. And to keep the balance — same goes for PS. We’ll try to avoid using some specific stuff in both applications to make our files reasonably compatible and switching back and forth as easy as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, a little less conversation, a little more action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preferences<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The one and only thing I recommend adjusting there for now is to turn mouse highlight off in Edit section of FW (it will show you object boundaries when you mouse over). It’s the first thing that will make FW interface feel alien to you comparing to PS and we don’t want that, do we?
\"Preferences\"
I guess It could be handy while exploring a file of your colleague’s creation to overview the structure, but you should well know what is where in your own, so it looks a bit excessive to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keyboard shortcuts<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Keyboard<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

You can select “Photoshop” shortcuts from the “Current set”, but if you are anything like me you have a lot of shortcuts remapped to easy use with one hand and a bunch of your own exclusive ones for frequent operations — this option can’t get you covered completely. So transit as much of your PS shortcuts to FW as you can and create new ones as you explore FW.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Few hints:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n