• http://twitter.com/mkkov Mikko

    Nice article, but some facts are not quite right eg. Fireworks does not support SVG (import nor export).

    • http://www.balancedclutter.com Ryan
      • http://twitter.com/mkkov Mikko

        FW has the build-in capabilities to handle SVG but the actual functionality is not there yet. Altho’ there is 3rd party extension which allows to export SVG files.

        • http://www.fireworkszone.com Thierry Lorey

          Hi Mikko, what’s this third party extension? I don’t know it.

  • http://www.liveanime.org helium

    I have a friend who also swears by fireworks, i think i’m just too used to photoshop. MAybe one day ill change lol ^_^

  • ArminC

    I use FW most of the time, but sometimes you still need PS or Illustrator for specific tasks. However to be honest most web designers (especially at the beginning) don’t really need more than FW.

  • Mário Almeida

    I haven’t read the whole article (yet), and I am a Fireworks fan, but the first few lines stroke me like a sledgehammer.
    Apart from a typo (“bringing”, not “brining”), what is wrong here? CMYK is subtractive, RGB is additive, not the other way around, as stated in the article.
    Hopefully the rest of the post is more accurate…

  • http://www.alterview.nl Gert Wierbos

    I agree(!!). I work at a fairly large webdesign company in the Netherlands, but everyone is very pro-photoshop. Too bad I can’t get them to work with fireworks… I’m glad I can use fireworks and i’m not forced to use photoshop. In my own little company I use only fireworks and some open-source software :)

  • http://wilwaldon.com William Waldon

    Awesome article. I use Fireworks everyday and haven’t used Photoshop in a long time because Fireworks is so great.

  • http://www.benkrogh.com Ben

    Fantastic article, and great reasoning! Thanks for sharing, I’ve been sort of on the fence about fireworks, but considering it for most of the reasons that you’ve listed.

    Since I’m still a student, I haven’t been doing any client work for web stuff, just for design projects at school. However, I think I’ll be taking the leap into using it, I’ve really only heard positives on it.

  • http://twitter.com/chrissharp Chris Sharp

    re: pixel perfect positioning

    You should also mention the “cmd+k” keyboard short-cut, which snaps those pesky pixels in to place.

    I’d estimate that simple feature alone saves me hours a week.

  • http://restream.me Chris

    I agree 100%. Fireworks is a much better tool for web designers. It doesn’t seem to get the recognition it deserves though. I find far more people trying to hack their way through Photoshop rather than working in a simpler tool that is built for the web.

  • Bad Bunny

    I too have used FW since it’s early days at Macromedia… nothing better in my mind for web work.

  • http://phat-reaction.com Andy Killen

    @Mario, damn! after proof reading it will my print guru, neither of us picked up that typo.

    @mikko, I don’t export as SVG (although it is partially possible with fireworks extensions). I do import SVG wrapped inside .ai docs. My point was only about the drawing tools that you need and fireworks is really cool with Vector Graphics.

    @Chris, Yep “cmd+k” is dead handy.

  • http://www.evensongraphics.co.nz Cavell Evenson

    Hmmm. Most of this article is about how Firework is better than Photoshop. And for drawing and most web design I agree. I use Illustrator which can do most of the things you say Fireworks does here.
    You can set up mutliple page in Illustrator and you can use RGB colour space with pixels and measurements.

    …And Photoshop works mainly in the RGB colour space. Most filter only work in RGB and minilabs and photoprinting machines accept only RBG files.

  • http://chipps.ca Adrian

    Great article. I’ve recently started using Fireworks for some projects and I am loving it so far. As a Photoshop guy, there are a few things that are taking some getting used to so I haven’t seen much of a speed increase yet, but I’m sure that will come with time.

    Best feature so far, as Chris mentioned already: Ctrl + K. Absolute life-saver!

  • steve

    I was a champion of photoshop for years. I found the frames and cross frame layer options in fireworks and use it for the bulk of my wire-framing and ui designing. It is so easy to create master frames, ui elements, symbols and update things so elegantly. Also export is lightning fast. The only issues I see are lack of support and some memory leak issues. Also the typography needs a rejig. I do all my bulk image editing in PS still and complex effects there also.

    Anyone who will not use one because they use the other are not doing themselves justice. Experiment and see for yourself.

  • http://www.rumahcetak.com/ rumahcetak

    i’m gonna try firewoks.. nice info.. really like it

  • http://phat-reaction.com Andy Killen

    @Cavell Evenson,

    Illustrator may do the masterpages but when it comes to it, does not export well to web and does cost a whole lot more, as does photoshop which does not do masterpages or export to web well.

    The whole point of this article was to focus on web design and nothing else, and the fact that you can get a much cheaper product to do the job of 2 products. And in my opinion for the web it does a much better job.

  • Tom Pain

    Interesting article but…

    Illustrator CS5 now allows for pixel perfect layouts which wind up exactly the same when rasterised, as such your comment about pixel perfect positioning is incorrect. Additonally almost all adobe products allow you to customise the measurement value for the document?

    You raise some very good points about fireworks but clearly are biased towards it as you haven’t really validated your arguments against photoshop or illusrator.

    At the end of the day we can all argue the pros and cons of whatever we use, it is down to what we, as designers feel most comfortable in and what software allows us to complete the job as quickly and efficiently as possible.

    I for one find the completely free form nature of illustrator and its treatment of objects best although I do use fireworks for logos and pulling patterns into illustrator.

    • http://www.optimiced.com Michel

      Tom,

      Illustrator CS5 now allows you to make pixel-perfect designs for Web. This means, you can do it in Illustrator since May 2010. What about 2009 or earlier? Do you know how many hacks were needed to make Ai CS4 and older to create pixel-perfect graphics for Web?

      Fireworks CS5, CS4, CS3, 8, MX2004, MX and even older versions of Fireworks, all of them by default were able to create pixel-perfect designs for Web and screen without any need for some specific settings or workarounds. 10 or even more years ago, you were already able to easily create pixel-perfect designs in Fireworks — at the time, Illustrator and Photoshop weren’t even aware of the Web!

      The point of the article is that Fireworks was built for the Web. Its workflow is oriented towards the Web. Fireworks is and always was an easy-to-use tool, that you just fire away and in not time, you create your layouts and designs for the Web, then export them with the best possible quality (and smallest possible file size)!

      Actually, Photoshop and Illustrator heavily rely on copying unique features from Fireworks that could make them at least partially usable in the Web design area… but that’s a whole another story. :)

      • Tom Pain

        Michel,

        Indeed versions of illustrator before this one had inherent problems when making graphics intended for the web. I have worked around them for many years and now thankfully dont have to.

        All I was really trying to say was that it doesnt matter what we use as long as it works for us, you are obviously very passionate about Fireworks and this has reflected in your article.

        You raise some good points for fireworks and I am hearing more and more about it as such I will give it a go, you never know you may convert me!

        • Tom Pain

          Thats what you get for posting a reply first thing before coffee! Sorry michael, clearly you didnt write the article!

          • http://www.optimiced.com Michel

            No problems, Tom! :)

            I didn’t write this article, but I wrote a few others, about Fireworks, and some of them are as passionate as Andy’s article! ;-)

    • les

      Unfortunately we designers can’t just use what we are comfortable with.. I’ve been self employed fireworks user for a number of years yet now that i am looking for a perm position all i get from prospective employers is ‘you must use photoshop’.

  • Rhyaniwyn

    I agree with you mostly.

    But I was a diehard Fireworks user that switched to Photoshop.

    There are things I miss from Fireworks. But the bitmap editing is much more sophisticated in Photoshop (based on the last time I used Fireworks). I’ve gotten so used to Photoshop I can’t seem to make the switch back. I’ve tried.

    I’m still quite a fan, conceptually, of Fireworks. The stuff that Fireworks does well is the stuff I feel the lack of every time I open up Photoshop to mock up a web site.

  • http://twizzlebird.co.uk Dave Wright

    I have fireworks sat idle on my pc as part of the creative suite, I don’t think I’ve ever fired it up, oh the shame! perhaps for the next project I’ll trial it

  • AJ

    Great article! I’ve been on the fence about learning Fireworks and replacing Photshop/Illustrator with it. You’ve sold me to give it a try!

  • http://www.optimiced.com Michel

    Andy,

    Excellent article, but I’d still fix some typos all around the article… Will greatly improve the overall effect! (There are missing characters, lowercase/uppercase typos, etc)

    Also, I think that some parts of the article could be extended and explained in more detail but maybe some other time? Part II? ;-)

    • http://phat-reaction.com Andy Killen

      @Michel

      If I could re-edit it I already would have.

      And yes definitely there is much space for a part II, I only stopped at 7 as I wanted to make it readable and not a Novel.

      I’m sure that I could do part 2 and 3 without really trying.

      I just hope that the point I was trying to make got across. Fireworks is cheaper and does a better job for the web than anything else that is commonly used.

    • http://digitalreaction.net rob

      I’m a longtime Fireworks user, it is easily the most complete toolset… It’s not for deep image editing or complex line art but everything else it’s spot on…

  • Dear

    Funny, I just tried to look up some of fireworks latest features on adobe and found it’s been buried deeper in the site than the marianas trench. Not listed anywhere except in a dropdown at the end of the ‘all products’ page. Is this an indication that Adobe wants you to use it’s ‘original’ products rather than what it inherited from Macromedia and competed in basically the same niche?

  • les

    I have been a long time user of fireworks and i think it’s perfect for the job of design for the web – it does everything I need.

    I hate that in photoshop i have to remember to create layers unlike fw which just puts everything on its own layer, i hate that the gradient tool is so difficult in ps yet so intuitive in fw, i love that in fw i don’t have to think about rasters and vectors, and if the client wants to change the page size i can just rescale everything without loss of quality etc etc

    Unfortunately every prospective employer wants photoshop skills and v few see any merit in fireworks.

  • Gerrit Grunwald

    I only can agree to every word you wrote. Very nice article, in fact i’m using fireworks also for 5+ years and I found nothing comparable to it. It might be of interest that I created a little tool to convert Fireworks FXG files directly to Java2D code. So it’s a piece of cake to convert my component prototypes directly to Java components. Thanx for this great article…

  • http://doliver.co.uk/ David Oliver

    Thanks for the article.

    Minor point: you have “additive” and “subtractive” the wrong way around in the intro. RGB is an additive colour model; CMYK is a subtractive colour model (the more ink you put down, the darker the colour).

  • http://www.behance.net/webcrafter Andre Pereira

    You see. I usually don’t post here, but this time I feel like I have to.

    You can’t compare Fireworks to Photoshop or Illustrator, because they are not made for the same thing.

    Illustrator is into Vector Production, Print Production, etc.

    Photoshop is into Photo Treatment, Digital Painting, Bitmap Stuff.

    Fireworks is something in between. It’s the best for quick web production.

    SO

    There are things that I can do on photoshop, that it’s just impossible to do in fireworks. At least, not as quickly. And not just talking about photography. I’ talking about web design too.

    So in conclusion, you can’t put those softwares into a vs., because THERE IS NO FIGHT.

  • http://www.vicky89.com vicky

    may be we should be open minded and include opensource softes like GIMP.

  • http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/03/05/valencia/1236290932.html fran

    Fireworks is the best tool for web design.. I think

  • Pingback: A Case for Adobe Fireworks against Photoshop and Illustrator :Speckyboy Design Magazine « twitter-1k.com

  • http://www.ChiefAlchemist.com Chief Alchemist

    Great article and too many good comments :) I’ve been contemplating FW for a bit now. This might be what pushes me over the edge. Thanks.

    Since I’m here, a couple things to add…

    => While I don’t mean to offend anyone (with what might be common knowledge) but, Adobe offers a free trial of FW: http://ca10.us/b5qdE6

    => We all work with what we are comfortable with. Sometimes for better or for worse. Ultimately we should be using the right tools for the right job. I believe Andy’s main point is: if your focus on is web then considering not hammering with a screwdriver. But maybe it was the title that set the wrong tone?

    => That said (as someone else did note), those signing the check are often more interested in the means, than the ends. And yes, quite often to their own detriment.

    => Finally, anyone care to comment on using FW as their primary tool and then Gimp and/or Inkscape in the rare instance they have to go offline?

  • Erick

    Photoshop is also capable to work with SVG with the help of some third party plug-ins (check http://svg.scand.com) Not a substitute to EPS or Fireworks capabilities, but at least it’s possible to avoid conversions and some adjustment work.

  • http://s-mcm.com tdonohue

    You missed a major.
    According to Adobe the fireworks image optimization is much better than Photoshop yielding smaller, cleaner image file for the web.

    • http://share-and-follow.com/ Andy Killen

      you totally right. Fireworks often offers a 60% gain over photoshop/illustrator on the exported image sizes

  • http://www.reinegger.net Andre Reinegger

    Here are 50 reasons for Fireworks and against Photoshop and Illustrator. http://www.reinegger.net/50_reasons_not_to_use_photoshop_for_webdesign.html

  • http://aboxofpixels.com Dee Sadler

    #1)I think InDesign needs to be added to the MIX at this point. InDesign is commonly used for wireframing, has Master pages and as of CS5, can have different size pages. Eight Shapes has some great tools for both AI and InDesign. unify.eightshapes.com (http://unify.eightshapes.com/efficiency-tips/sketchy-illustrator-wireframes/) ID also has a library and can spit out code to Dreamweaver. It also has layers and is easy to use. Of course, with Artboards in Illustrator, you can easily have different size pages, and it has a library of sorts with Symbols.

    #2) Illustrator clearly wins out with SVG, especially since they included the CSS3/HTML5 extension. Before Michel slams me about prior to CS5… this article was written late 2010 and thus CS5 was into play, so AI has Pixel perfect design.

    #3) is really the one I had issues with. “Photoshop does offer this capability to batch process but not in the same way as Fireworks. Photoshop on the other hand is better at turning lots of photos into a posterized format or making them all Andy Warhol style, which I for one rarely use. ” No, not in the same way, but it all depends on the Actions. Photoshop can do almost anything you want it to via Actions. Yes, I can make Commands and Actions in Fireworks, but don’t put down all you can do with Photoshop via Actions and having a Droplet. I can make an action, then make a droplet where I can drop an entire folder on it and have that action applied. Can be very complicated. Now with CS4 and CS5 Photoshop, having the ability to use Context-Scale and Context-Fill for headers… I can easily take an image that is 860px wide and use it for my 960 wide header.

    #4) Bad example again. Photoshop and Illustrator do this just as easily.

    #7) You forgot about one of Fireworks best features. The ability to make an interactive PDF of your wireframes and/or Share with the client via Connect Now. Hotspots made and linked to your Pages in the Master page, when exported as a PDF, make it clickable. No need to export a bad table. When the document is created correctly, you can easily export standards-based CSS as well.

    One of the things I like best about Fireworks as opposed to Photoshop (with is raster based) and Illustrator (also vector based but geared to designers) is being able to Share Layers with other Pages. That way you can update just one layer.

    Working with shapes is no contest between Photoshop and Fireworks. Illustrator is vector, and also has a pathfinder, but shapes are easier to work with in general, and you can continue to change pathfinder shapes.

    I can easily take a rectangle, decide to give it rounded corners, and I have tons of gradients to choose from, patterns, make the edges feathered and lots more, in mere seconds compared to PS and AI. They gave InDesign auto shapes but I don’t have all the other options I do with Fireworks there.

    Auto shapes rule over both Photoshop and Illustrator however. So many different shapes that I can create. I can easily make my design look unique with Fireworks.

    I love Fireworks. So much I created a video tutorial for Total Training. http://www.totaltraining.com/prod/adobe/fireworkscs5.asp I just wanted to make sure the facts were straight about the other products.

    • http://aboxofpixels.com Dee Sadler

      I must have been on crack earlier. That was content aware scale and fill. Not context.

    • http://phat-reaction.com andy killen

      Dee,

      You seem to have an endless budget for applications and time for learning many different products at the same time. I guess that is because you train in those products.

      Not what happens in the real world for most people. Most companies want the lowest investment to get the highest productivity.

      Also you honestly cannot tell me that PS and AI are half as good at exporting to the web as FW. Not and keep a straight face. You know full well that both PS and AI create bloated images, often 50% larger in size or more. So although you can export slices as you say, are they of production worthy value for the web?

      Yes AI is “the” SVG tool to use, but if you notice I was compairing to PS and did pay due to AI. From my observations of how designers actually use PS and AI in this situation they try to do everything in PS and then dip into AI to adapt fonts for logo design…

      You can of course continue to spend considerable cash to get these extra products and the extra time to learn them, or you can go for a much cheaper product that does the job of the 3 that you mention and much lower price,

      Again, I’m gonna stick with fireworks and the nice holiday.

    • http://twitter.com/allenberg93 Michael Allenberg

      I agree completely, InDesign (using EightShapes) is one of the best web design tools available…

  • http://www.scottish-meida.co.uk John Loudon

    Hmm, I think this comes from a miss understanding of Photoshop(and its power). You can use vector shapes, layers for design. Which will allow you to scale freely etc. Thats how I do it so point two is NULL from that view.

    You can also layer and Group items which gets round your subpages etc.

    Batch processing is possible in pretty much any Adobe tool now, I have batched many things in PS or bridge or between the two.

    I am not saying FW is bad, if you use it and it works then good for you. PS is the superiour tool though from where I stand, if it comes down to it I can paint right into photoshop what I want.

    To my knowledge people don’t use FW for photomanipulation, editing photos, painting, etc. These things help with designing a site.

    I am a die hard PS fan, used FW before but I can’t view them as the same league. Its PS’s market from what I can tell.

    John

    • http://www.facebook.com/vrspencer Vivian Reuel Spencer

      Totally agree

  • http://www.origindh.com Derek Land

    Very good write up for some general differences between PS and W, but I might add severely biased in many areas. I’ve used Fireworks, and I can tell you – it’s far from the “Perfect” you say it is.

    I still prefer Photoshop – because I have the power to do everything I need to make a website work – photo retouching, layout, etc etc. Fireworks lacks comprehensive photo handling, and while it might be great in some ways, that there is enough for me to write it off.

    :)

  • devo

    some part of Firework win photoshop but there are some part make firework lose like the adobe photoshop live effect only offer blend mode in multiple, the color panel of firework was worse than photoshop and the align not smart as the photoshop smart guide, if ppl at adobe migrate this photoshop feature to firework, i bet firework better than photoshop.

    was worse was most client prefer PSD other than firework. =/

  • Jim Babbage

    Great article! The other hashtag on twitter to follow is #adobefireworks

  • Pablo Massa

    FW was maded from scratch for screen graphics. That’s why will be always better than PS in this area. Now Adobe have more responsability and pressure on FW because the industry is taking a lot of attention to screen graphics since Web 2.0 (2004) > Smart phones (2007) > Tablets (2010) 
    http://pablomassa.com

    Here you can find a lot of FW lovers and arguments: http://fireworksinterviews.com

  • http://www.kooldot.com/ KoolDot

    Informative Post!

    We recently began using  Fireworks for mock-up work. Great how you can quickly create the layout (like in iWeb, but with much more muscle) and also see how it plays it on the Web. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/lingesh.kumaar Lingesh Kumaar

    for drawing an image from scratch and importing them into stencyl (game making program) what should i use photoshop or illustrator or fireworks