fireworks vs photoshop

Hi

I am wondering if anyone has used both fireworks and photoshop the reason being is I was trying to decide if I should switch or not

I was at first simply going to upgrade my fireworks but was getting the impression photoshop had a lot more "things' to offer. I still can't decide I"m about to download the demo of photoshop (i'm a macromedia groupie from way back when and now they are owned by adobe as well) but I was wondering if anyone had worked with both enough to know the difference for the long run

What prompted this question was a look at the photoshop interface which looks remarkably like the fireworks one since macromedia has now been obtained by adobe. Is the present day photoshop more durable then the present day fireworks?

The burning question in the back of my mind..

My understanding is that Fireworks is a fairly streamlined program focusing on creating high quality, highly optimized images for use on the Web. If your main work (ie...main hobby or paying work) involves creating such elements for web design then this would probably be the way to continue.

Photoshop is an extensive application with a variety of uses. Its main use is for digital photographers but obviously people have taken it far above and beyond its 'advertised' usage. It's pretty much industry standard for creating textures for video games. There are also loads of digital painters who use Photoshop as their main tool. It can also be used to create images for the web but isn't as streamlined for that as Fireworks. If you are looking for an extremely flexible graphics program and are willing to invest the money then Photoshop may be the best choice for you.

If you do decide on Photoshop you may want to find out when Photoshop CS3 will be released. I understand it's in beta testing right now. While I'm certainly more than happy with CS2 you might find it preferable to hold off and get the new version when it's released.

Hope this helps!

Having seen the feature set of CS3 (aka pshop 10) there seems to be little to nothing to benefit someone doing SL work. Similarly, CS (aka pshop was a "nothing to write home about" augmentation of pshop 7.

If you are keen on Photoshop, you might look for "getting rid of stock sales" of pshop 7. You should also know that there are zero cost (The GIMP) and lesser cost (PaintShopPro), and I've even read that Photoshop Elements is sufficient for SL work.

There is no reason to wait nor shell out US$ 700 for CS3. That said I love CS2, but don't use anything for SL work.

yeah i use gimp and fireworks now (which is awekward to say the least) i was looking to upgrade the fireworks for other stuff and thought hrm why not get photoshop instead because of SL

i have like the complete macromedia package
the freehand, flash, fireworks and dreamweaver etc

was wondering with the price difference if the freehand and fireworks were combined into one in photoshop or something

was gonna get photoshop cs2 (didnt hear the cs3 was much different) and upgrade the dreamweaver and just file the fireworks away

just was hoping someone had used both and could tell me what was in photoshop and not fireworks before i buy new software and not upgrade

Depends what you're using Fireworks for. I create all my web graphics (buttons etc) in Photoshop - probably though habit as I use it a lot for art and I'm familiar with the interface. Whilst I occasionally like to play with FW's nifty tools, I don't use it for any of my web work, so the program is pretty pointless for me when I have PS. If you're using Fireworks for anything other than the graphics, then see if the upgrade will improve any of those features. If you're only looking at it from a graphics point of view, I'd say go with Photoshop, since that's what it's designed for.

I have to disagree about calling PS8 just an augmentation of PS7, but 7 will certainly do the job. Just make sure if you do get it, Wilhelm, that you immediately upgrade it to 7.0.1 via the free patch from Adobe.com. 7.0 had a lot of flaws.

As for Fireworks, as others have stated, it's a great program for web graphics, but it's pretty much a one trick pony. It can't do much else. Photoshop can do a whole lot more. There are certain web things FW might actually be slightly better at since it is such a one-track focused application, but but those things are pretty minimal in my opinion compared with the tremendous amount of other things that Photoshop allows you to do.

I'll second the recommendation for PSP or GIMP if you're looking for low cost alternatives that will work well for SL stuff. GIMP's a bit hard to learn, but it's very powerful, and it's free. PSP has gotten quite good in the last few years, although it's still a little awkward for certain things.

I own both Fireworks and Photoshop. Fireworks came bundled with some web development software that I bought, and it certainly was great for making web-optimized graphics and buttons. It has a great tool for selecting and comparing various compression methods. It was largely useless for anything else. Photoshop, on the other hand, I purchased on a student discount, and I've upgraded it many times since then. It's been invaluable since day one.

I almost exclusively use Photoshop. It's far more versitile and better supported, has far more useful plug-ins and other add-ons, and in general is just a much better application.

At this time, I still use Photoshop 7, on Mac. I didn't see enough added value in the newer upgrades to justify the expense, and the '7.whatever' version that I have now meets all my needs. I'll eventually upgrade it, but I am in no rush to do so.

yes i will probably get a copy of photoshop as well to add to my collection I use the freehand and fireworks which actualy has a lot of use on the net but its limitting my ability to do a few things I want and I actualy dont like gimp its quite hard to use i find

priced in canada its close to 1,000 bucks I do use the entire macromedia kit for work but never tried adobe it was not that huge when i started .. now long ago hehe it was a competition between the two to see who won I guess adobe won

Check on upgrade offers from Adobe. You may be eligible for a "Cross-product upgrade", where if you prove to them that you already own a competing product, they will give you a price break to jump to their product.

Adobe own the Macromedia range now.

You can't save things as targa in Fireworks, so that's alpha textures gone. I am more used to Fireworks so I sometimes make things there and save them as a psd to finish them off in Photoshop.

I have this strange feeling I will be getting both but since the fireworks will be an upgrade not to expensive I was just wondering if maybe a lot of the fireworks features had been added to photoshop or whatever since the buyout


maybe i wont get firewroks upgraded..

i'm so used to it though .. gah

Hi!

Ummmm.. "little to nothing to benefit someone doing SL work?"

Excuse me, Malachi, but I assume if you say this that you haven't discovered Smart Objects?

I think that being able to match things perfectly over the seams, and to set it up once and use it again and again and again is definitely of benefit to someone doing SL work.

Wilhelm, with Photoshop CS2 and above, you can use something called "Smart Objects." Each one is simply an instance of the first one.

So, for instance, say that you want to make a waistband that goes around the skirt, and say that waistband has a pattern on it.

In a real skirt, the pattern would match on the sides, and meet up with a pattern that wasn't quite the same in front, right? But in SL, it would be a very difficult task to make the pattern match, so we just kind of settle for having it mismatched on the sides, where the seams are.

Except, with Smart Objects, we can (very easily) match it once, and then just use that for any and all patterns forever after!

Just put a strip of Test Pattern on the waistband, and Group it into a Smart Object. Use the Warp button in the Transform dialog to match it to the sides of the skirt on the back piece, duplicate the Smart Object, set the Warp to None, then to Custom, and use it again to match the right side. Like this.



(I used a finer Test Pattern in RL; but decided it was easier to see it this size for this discussion.)

Duplicate and repeat for the left side, and you have a waistband that matches perfectly over both side seams.

Replace the Contents of the Smart Object with the fabric you intend to use, and presto! You have a perfectly matching waistband with your actual fabric.



Here you see the Smart Object itself, opened up (it's the .psb object.) Anything you put in that document will appear, perfectly matched, across the seams of your waistband.

Finish up your skirt, and you're good to go.

Want to make another skirt using the same pattern, but with a different fabric? Just Replace the Contents again, and the new fabric is there, instantly, perfectly matched with no more work at all.



In fact, in this skirt, most of the fabric pieces are Smart Objects, so I can replace the contents of two things (waistband, and skirt piece,) and the entire document updates; all the fabric pieces are changed in a flash, and all I need to do is match the buttons, piping, adjust the shadows and so on.

How does this look inside SL?



Perfect, within the abilities of SL to render stuff.

Now, you might not think that's much of a benefit, and I suppose if you never did textures for skin or clothing it might not be. But, for those of us who do, and who learn to use this, it's a huge timesaver/quality booster!

Just my 2¢.

Hope this helps!

yes this is information I was looking for and now i am in love.


Okay since I will use photoshop in the same way as I would fireworks for real world work and then it will help me do nicer stuff for SL for me I want

thanks wanted to see what and why everyone is using photoshop there had to be a reason I think i found it