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Figure 6.3. Navigation and button bar in Macromedia Fireworks (You
can make navigation bars and buttons in Macromedia Fireworks quickly
and easily. Buttons can be sliced and exported to make navigation bars for
use in Macromedia Dreamweaver.)
As well, in many cases, I have legacy documents that are in Photoshop file
format. My point here is that I use both applications when I design Web site
screens. You might favor one over the other. But for slicing, exporting, and
integration with Dreamweaver, Fireworks wins hands down in my opinion. Not
to worry though, Fireworks opens native Photoshop files with layers and the
text is completely editable. As long as versions are up to date, the integration
is seamless. You could design all your pages and navigation graphics in
Photoshop and then open them in Fireworks to optimize, slice, and export. If
you create pages in Photoshop, you can save the files as PSD format. Then, you
can open the PSD file directly in Fireworks. You can tweak the page and slice
and export. Lastly, you can save the file as PNG so that it is easily edited and
re-exported in the future.
Macromedia was purchased by Adobe in April 2005, but Fireworks and
Photoshop still remain individual products. In the future, it will be interesting to
see how Adobe integrates the applications to create a Web graphics tool that
will enable even the newest Web portfolio designer to create Web screens and
output them to Web pages quickly and easily. The process is good now,
however there always be improvements made to digital workflows as technol-
ogy progresses.
