Adobe Fireworks CS5 Classroom in a Book
Those creative professionals seeking the fastest, easiest, most comprehensive way to learn Adobe Fireworks CS5 choose Adobe Fireworks CS5
Classroom in a Book from the Adobe Creative Team at Adobe Press. The 13 project-based lessons in this book show readers step-by-step the key techniques for working in Fireworks CS5. Readers will learn what they need to know to collaborate with other Adobe Creative Suite applications to design and mock up basic Web pages or interfaces for rich Internet appli
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Excellent Introduction to Fireworks,
After several “heart breaking” years of nothing being published on Fireworks (except for Jim’s other book on Fireworks How To’s), this book is indeed very welcome. Adobe has shifted the emphasis of Fireworks to Prototyping and the book stays true to this focus. Along the way Jim introduces Bitmap and Vector Image editing as well as Masking, Image Optimization, Auto Shapes, Commands, Textures, the incredible Property Inspector and much more.
This book currently has no serious competition. Nevertheless, Jim maintains a very high standard and I enthusiastically recommend this book. Jim has a passion for Fireworks that is deeply appreciated by those of us who use it. It is a good companion to his Fireworks classes on […]. As to improving this book, I trust this book will develop through the years and become more “fleshed out” with details similar to the older seasoned Illustrator Classroom in a Book.
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|The Best Fireworks Reference, Ever!,
Fireworks (Fw) has to be the most misunderstood app in the Master Collection.
In its earlier Macromedia life I would download trial versions of the thing and just could not get jazzed about it. Once I found it with its first appearance in an Adobe Creative Suite box (CS3), I tried to get excited but I was unable to rev myself. However, as soon as I explored Fw CS4 I was hooked. The app finally seemed full featured, unfortunately, it was a buggy mess and crashed all the time. Then Adobe released Fw CS5, a very stable product. Once Fw CS3 was released, Adobe pulled ImageReady from the Photoshop package. The thinking was that all the ImageReady features were now in Fireworks. I continued to use a backwards way of doing things in Photoshop since Fireworks and I were not getting along well. Once I befriended Fw CS5, I began telling everyone about it. The ImageReady features are just a small fraction of what Fw CS5 is all about. I decided I wanted to learn everything about Fw CS5. I looked all around for a great reference of the latest and all-time greatest Fireworks, ever, and was disappointed to find that there isn’t much available. The upshot is that there’s a fabulous Classroom in a Book (CIB) for Fw CS5. If you look in the back of this book you’ll discover that this is written by Jim Babbage. Once Fw CS4 was released, Janet & I watched Jim on Adobe TV and lynda.com. He got us motivated about all the cool stuff we could do with Fw. Jim has to be one of the foremost authorities, in the world, on Fw. So, I went into this book with extremely high expectations of being about to round out some of my rough spots in Fireworks know-how. We’re six weeks away from redoing our website, which will be updated every other day. I need to work more efficiently than using my backwards Photoshop methods, so mastering Fw CS5 is essential.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I have never met Jim, but have group conversations, which include him, on closed web forums about some Adobe apps. But, that doesn’t cloud my candor about reviewing this work, or anyone else’s.
For someone who has attained a level of expertise in other Adobe apps, they may blow past the first CIB chapters on “Getting to Know the Workspace.” Even if you’ve mastering the likes of InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop, but are new to Fireworks, you need to read every word of Fw CS5 CIB’s first chapter. The Fireworks user interface (UI) is not like that of other CS5 apps (which I feel is the app’s biggest downfall). It still has some Macromedia blood in its veins and this CIB will make the Dreamweaver user feel comfortable. Get to know the first chapter before moving forward.
If you’re feeling a little rattled, about being in some unfamiliar territory, the second lesson, on workflow tools, will allow Photoshop professionals to feel at home. Jim even goes above the call of duty in filling you in on when things can come into Fireworks from Photoshop, but not always find their way back (called “round-tripping”). This same lesson gets into states, not a term some will have even heard of, before. It’s how Fw allows you to mock-up web interactivity. At first I thought, “Why is only three pages devoted to this?” But, then I realized that’s all it took to get comfortable with the tools and basic techniques.
Most of the third chapter, on bit map images, is essential if you do not have any background in that sort of thing. It has to be said. For someone who already knows all of this, it’s not a waste of time to carefully walk through the whole thing just to be sure your Fw legs are on firm ground. Being someone who goes back to Photoshop 2.0, I found the example images to be inspirational. Even before I got into some of the features, which are unique to Fw, a few of the images in an alley and the use of watches made me think, “I want to do that!” The fourth lesson of selections cannot be left unexplored, for the beginner. Jim has given the book a theme using images relative to intrigue and espionage, which has to make you smile.
For the Illustrator pro, the fifth chapter, on vector images, will initially seem like old hat and you’ll be tempted to zoom through it. That would be a mistake. Fw has a variety of tools and features which are all its own. Jim has set aside a section of this chapter which allows you to see what’s unique. Bookmark page 92 for a vector tool reference.
I must admit that I cannot get used to how text works in Fw. It seems clumsy to deal with in a properties panel and the text engine is very weak. It’s unlike anything else in the Adobe Master Collection and not easily to fit into the scope of users’ experiences, with other Adobe apps. Text, for the web has its own set of eccentricities. Just like in the previous lesson, on masking, Jim makes this applicable to web design rather than taking you through meaningless basics.
Preparing graphics for the web, today, is…
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|Riddled with mistakes,
– Chapter 2, page 30: There aren’t two “Auction background” items, as listed in the text and shown in the graphic.
– Chapter 2, page 34-35: The instructions don’t tell say which Layer to add the effect to
– Chapter 2, page 36: There is no “movie title” object on the home_double_identity Page, but using this element is crucial to completing the exercise.
– Chapter 2, page 36: “Adjust Color” isn’t on the Properties tab. The correct action is + next to Filters > Adjust Color > Levels…
I have to wonder if anyone even worked through these exercises before publishing the book. Very disappointing, Adobe.
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