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Take it from me, whether you design web graphics for a
living or just like to experiment, you will want to fire
this thing up and see what it can do. Besides, the 90-day
free public beta version of
Macromedia's
Fireworks web graphics design software is definitely one of
the greatest bargains around.
They probably call it "Fireworks" because it dazzles by doing just about everything you can think of all at once. Fireworks files contain multiple layers and frames that you work on using integrated vector and bit-map graphics tools. I call it a "hot rod" because of its impressive power and speed: inside Fireworks you can design and produce web-ready graphics using tools and techniques that formerly required a good half-dozen or more different applications, utilities, and plug-ins. You can preview different compression schemes and formats side-by-side while reading figures for file size and download times, for example. You can import and export all popular graphic formats and convert layered Illustrator, Painter, and Photoshop files to GIF animations on a whim. Experimenting with this application has kept me up late for a whole week and I'm still finding things to marvel at, like Live Effects: you can add, subtract, and edit things like bevels, textures, and colors while your image changes automatically, without having to click the "Apply" button. And impulsive types take note: you can set the application's preferences for almost unlimited undo steps. There's a 4-place field to enter your number of choice, with the default set at 8. I entered 9999 just for fun, clicked OK, and nothing beeped!
The people who designed this software have to be
congratulated for putting so much capability and
sophistication into such a lean and intuitive interface,
too. There is nothing here to intimidate the newcomer,
although this software is definitely professional-grade.
Having all your favorite design and production tools inside
one "graphics environment" should speed your workflow
considerably, too, which is precisely the point with
Fireworks. The program's authors have succeeded in creating
something which feels all-of-one-piece, like a strong but
extremely dextrous muscle. I never felt like I was using a
complicated hodge-podge or awkward collection of gizmos, but
an elegant sort of graphics "Swiss Army knife" instead.
Fireworks does several things extremely well: the "slicing" option works beautifully, instantly generating your image as an HTML table. You can make all or part of an object become a URL by selecting it with several different tools, so that creating fancy image maps is fast and easy. Create any number of linked buttons and arrange them on a curvy, organic form to create a futuristic navigation device or panel. There's a pop-up menu for creating JavaScript buttons and rollovers from your images: all you do is select and click, Fireworks does the rest. You can easily enter text too, which remains forever editable. And rest assured that "editable" does not begin to describe all the effects, textures, transformations, and behaviors that can be applied to text blocks as well as everything else.
Among the many graphics tools worthy of mention are my special favorites, the bamboo "calligraphy" brush and the "unnatural" brush, with its 3D, Toxic Waste, and Viscous Alien Paint settings. And part of the beauty of using many of these tools is in the way their settings and functions are changed by selecting from pop-up menus, adjacent palettes, or clicking inside the document window itself. Fireworks tries to keep you next to your work and not "mousing around" at the top of the screen, in other words.
But there are two things in particular that anyone who
has ever designed a single web graphic will appreciate: the
incredible joy of experimenting with fully editable
drop-shadows in real time and the amazingly useful Export
Preview window (see screenshot near top of page). The
former, besides being very sophisticated and drop-dead
simple to use, features a "knock-out" button, which removes
the object but leaves the shadow. The latter lets you
preview various formats and optimizations side-by-side. You
can view as many as 4 compression options simultaneously.
GIF or JPEG? Just look and see! You can compare the quality,
file sizes, and download times of the different formats at a
glance. Just fiddle with the bit depth or palette and watch
everything change accordingly, all inside the preview
windows. Creating highly-compressed images for the web is
absurdly easy and fast. There are probably quite a few of us
who ought to download this gadget and crunch all our image
files while it's still free!
At present all you need besides the time it takes to
download the 7.6 MB package is about 5 MB of disk space for
the application itself and at least 20 MB of memory for
Fireworks alone. I really haven't found anything wrong with
Fireworks, except that just like in the case of a real Swiss
Army knife, you may find it a trifle awkward to cut your
rib-eye with: an ordinary steak knife is probably better. In
other words, that favorite little graphics program you're
used to using for a specific purpose still belongs on your
hard drive. Note: one extremely useful $19.95 graphics
application that outputs web-ready GIF and JPEG files, drop
shadows and all, is
MicroFrontier's
WWWArt 2.0. Check it out when your Fireworks beta expires if
you can't afford the real thing.
Reviewing this software has nonetheless succeeded in
making me want a copy of my own, because a couple of
familiar applications I used to use are going to seem
awkward and slow if I have to go back! Here's hoping
Macromedia's pricing makes this baby as easy to buy as it is
to use.
|
PROS: |
Great for experimenting and producing highly-compressed professional-quality graphics for web or screen. Serious fun to use! |
|
CONS: |
My copy expires June 8, 1998! Also: simpler, more limited graphics applications may be easier to use for certain tasks. Does not export to Macromedia's Shockwave format. |
|
CONCLUSION: |
Of course you can still do things with other specialized applications that you can't do in Fireworks. But what you can do with this application is amazing. Web designers owe themselves a hard look at this one, and the free public beta is a no-brainer for any clever creative types who want to give themselves a head start. |
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Tags: Reviews ď Graphics/Design ď
