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Oct 17 2007 Over the past few months several new Fireworks Commands and Panels have been made available to the Fireworks community. There are a few of them that I have found quite indispensable as a designer. One extension that I have found extremely helpful is
Another very useful panel helps designers create more precise gradients. With this panel, designers can zoom in on gradients to help produce very detailed effects. The standard gradient panel in Fireworks doesn't offer nearly this same functionality. It's a great way to produce effects that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do in Fireworks - this makes the Gradient Panel a most have extension!
The above gradient would have been impossible to make with the standard panel in Fireworks. At the end of this article, you'll find the link to download this extension.
Fireworks CS3 ships with a color palette panel but it is quite limited in its functionality. This updated version will absolutely knock your socks off! Well... if you're into color as much as me it will!
This MUCH improved version of the Color Palette Panel allows you to do several things. For instance, in the above example, I can select any area on a bitmap image, like the photo above, using the eye dropper tool and the Color Palette will show me exactly what color I have selected and provide me with the closest web safe color. However, more than that, I can find colors that are close in range to that color if I select Blender.
The Blender shows me an entire range of colors, up to 36, that I could use to produce a harmonious color composition.
Blender: Click on the Fill selector. An eye dropper will appear allowing you to select colors in your image. You can then choose colors that fall into the same range - up to 36.
Export as Bitmap Under Selector you'll find Mixers. Here you can export the color palette as a bitmap into a new document. You can then use these colors as a good reference in your design, or send them off to another worker so you'll both be working within the same color ranges.
Named Colors I think the feature that I like most from the Color Palette is the Named Colors option. Here you can browse through "themed" color values. There are several different color themes to choose from: Blue, Blue Green, Green, Yellow Brown, Orange Red, Violet Purple, Pastels, Primary, and Grayscale. The Yellow Brown color range is perfect for choosing autumn colors! The named colors provide designers with hues that go well together, which is essential for an eye pleasing template, but isn't that easy to select on your own - especially if you're color blind like me!
SmartCSS is more than a command. It adds a total new functionality to Fireworks than what was previously capable. SmartCSS allows designers to export a template for a website as CSS. I'll be writing a tutorial that will cover this in the near future - as I am still learning it myself! However, you'll find a link below with a great explanation of SmartCSS and where to download it. Download or find out more about these extensions: Smart Punch
Sep 26 2007 This is a fun way to learn how to create textures and beveled (sunken) effects in Fireworks. In this case, we'll be creating a paw print in the sand.
Sep 22 2007 This is a cool little button I created in Fireworks. It's basically a glass button with a 3D appearance. I thought it created a really nice effect so I thought I'd share it with you.
Sep 21 2007 It's no secret, or at least it shouldn't be,that Fireworks is primarily a web designers tool. It's main purpose is to create web templates, interfaces and graphics. Over the past few months, with the release of CS3, there are a lot of newcomers to Fireworks - namely ImageReady folks who may or may not be thrilled with the fact that they now must use Fireworks to do their slicing and exporting of html. Well, no matter what you're background, I welcome you to the wonderful world of Fireworks!
Sep 20 2007 - It's just about my favorite time of the year - Halloween! Of course, I'll be preparing plenty of tutorials just for the occasion. First off, an easy way to create a haunted house in Photoshop.
Sep 19 2007 - Over the past year or so I had visited quite a few sites that had this neat little effect for viewing full size photos on their web pages. I'd click on a thumbnail image and the web page would suddenly gray out and this white box would expand from the center of the page featuring the full-size image contained inside the same white box. A caption was in the lower left corner and a close button appeared in the bottom right. "Coooool!" I thought. I wondered how the heck they did that. It took me a while but I did find the source of the magic. I don't even remember what I typed into Google to find the script. I think it was something like "click on thumbnail image + gray out page + pop open groovy box". Well, at any rate, I found it a couple months ago and it is called Lightbox2 by Lokesh Dhakar. So for the rest of you, that are completely out of the loop like me, here's an example. It's cool isn't it! It's SO much better than annoying pop-up windows! Here's where you can download the script and find out more about Lightbox2: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/
Sep 18 2007 - Boy, it's been a long time since I've done a Photoshop tutorial. I hope this gets the ball rolling! Anyway, while I've been obsessed with text effects in Fireworks, I thought I'd mosey on over to Photoshop and see what I could whip up. Here's text effect number one: Balloon Text. Number two: Peeling Paint Effect.
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