professional development

...this review is more for you than the professional or even the newbie. I'm not a graphics pro, though I have a decent amount of experience on everything from Paint Shop Pro to programs no longer in use. I started using Fireworks as part of the Studio suite of programs included with Dreamweaver and the other Macromedia products. When I started using Dreamweaver, I wasn't aware of what Fireworks could do and held off using it. But when I needed professional looking graphic logos, and Corel Draw wasn't doing what I needed, I went to Fireworks and haven't looked back.

Fireworks does image manipulation similar to Photoshop. Whether it is as capable in that area is debatable. I haven't used Photoshop, but have ordered a copy to see the differences. I'm also not as skilled in image work as I am in things like creating graphics for web sites or business cards, so I'm not the best source of comparison. However, I have taken some original images I shot with my digicam and worked with them to get the results I liked. There are many features in Fireworks for this kind of work, and for the most part, unless you are doing something spectacular, you should be able to use FW for this task. Unfortunately, if you want a thorough discussion on vector and raster graphics and software, this isn't it.

As far as original graphics, I like the way FW works. You can set up a "canvas" the size you want, have the graphic sized by pixels, and change both easily. Also, perhaps like other programs, there is a great deal of use of X/Y coordinates, so items can be placed very precisely. Unlike PSP (or at least the version I last used), once an item is placed, you can still select that item (text, box, image, etc.) and put it somewhere else. The native PNG format that FW produces uploads to web pages directly without conversion to JPG or GIF, and I found that very worthwhile. For some reason, my logos in Corel Draw were coming out with fuzzy text, even at high resolutions. I drew the same or similar logos in FW and had no distortion problems. It may have been a graphic format conversion issue. Either way, its not a problem working with FW, DW, and the web.

FW is reasonably easy to learn to use. It will take you a while to get good at it, however. And you probably won't become a graphics pro just by buying this software. However, it is nice to have this program in my toolkit for general, advanced amateur use. Maybe you add Photoshop if you really need it, but for the most part, this just might get the job done.

I have been using Fireworks MX for three months now and I must admit that it provides web designers with tools to makes awesome looking pages. However, it still needs some work.

Fireworks MX 2004 makes improvements and boasts some new features. From my experience thus far, there are basic shapes included to the rectangle, circle, etc. You can now do 'L' shapes, donuts, etc. The basic shapes appears to have doubled. There are also a few more filters. The interface looks more or less the same, and selecting textures is now presented with a colored picture, but still the same textures. I'm sure there are more upgrades, but I haven't had enough time with it.

I first wrote this review with a complaint about the picture quality for renders. However, I realized that setting the picture quality to 100% instead of the default 80% changed everything. While the file size increases, it is a better trade off for quality.

It would be great if there were much more features for Fireworks MX 2004. If you currently own Fireworks MX, there really is no reason for the upgrade. If you don't have any previous version of Fireworks, I suggest looking at the competition. Yes there is competition.

Ask any web designer which photo editing program they use and chances are the answer will be Photoshop and Image Ready. These two programs work hand in hand to deliver some of the best, if not the best tools on the market. Plus there are a lot more features than that of Fireworks MX 2004. I've only begun playing around with Photoshop 7.0 and Image Ready 7.0 (a step back from the CS edition) for two weeks and I'm getting the feeling that once I get use to it I won't turn back.

As a standalone, Fireworks will do what you need. It will create excellent web graphics. Menus, sites, animated gifs, rollovers, etc...

However, I would strongly suggest to you that you at least add Dreamweaver MX 2004 to the mix, preferably Studio MX 2004. The programs work so seemlessly together that it's almost like working in a single program.