Adobe Fireworks CS3 Basics Tutorial

This tutorial will show you the basic features of Adobe Fireworks CS3. If you look at the design of this new format, you will notice that seemingly almost nothing has changed. A few things have been moved to better spots, but most of the same features are here. The best thing about the new version is that some of the capabilities of the features have been improved to better suite the consumer. I found this upgrade to an easy transition from one Adobe Creative Suite to the next. I hope you enjoy this tutorial and notice that you can get some added kick from this new version if your needs are high like mine.

If you look at the starting page for the program you will notice that nothing much has changed. A few things moved here and something extra put there, but no real changes to really make your eyes pop out of your head.

If you navigate to the file menu you can open up a new document.

Now you can see the New Document window that allows you to choose the starting point for your document. You can choose the width, height, and resolution as usual. You can also select the canvas color from here.

The first on the list of features is the Pointer tool. You use this feature for all the Adobe products that are described in this website. Next is the Select Behind tool, which allows you to select an object or a layer that is behind another layer or object. Once you have done this you can do a variety of things with it. You could move the object or layer forward in the order or you can edit the object or layer however you please.

The Subselection Tool is used to target and adjust objects that are on a vector graphic or in a group of some sort. It is good to use this feature instead of changing the format or your illustration to use the regular Pointer tool.

The Scale tool has a couple items below it that you can’t quite see from the image below. They include the following, “Scale tool, Skew tool, and the Distort tool”. The Scale tool lets you resize something horizontally and vertically in nature. It does not change the image size. It basically just cuts an area out of an image. The Skew tool allows you to skew images. The Distort tool lets you make it look like the image is getting all weird looking. This is good when you want to make unrealistic graphics that somehow turn out to be cool looking.

The Crop tool is similar to the scale tool except it doesn’t resize an area of an image. The Crop tool actually cuts that area out of the image. You can do whatever you want with it after that. I usually use it when I cannot find an image in a certain size. So I find it somewhere where it is near something else and cut it out and make it look like it was alone to start with . The Export Area tool allows you to use the area you have cut out and to it to different programs for personal use.

The Marquee tool is able to able to grab a piece of an image that is one within itself and do almost anything with it. The Oval Marquee too allows you to draw an oval around an object and move that area around as you please.

The Lasso tool allows you to draw a freehand drawing around an object that you want to be highlighted for options. The Polygon Lasso tool has the same features except it does it with polygons points that connect with a straight edge. You can move the line from point to point. I use this sometimes if there are a lot of jagged edges that I want to capture without the background filling up the area.

The Magic Wand tool allows you to do amazing things with your pictures. I am just kidding you its no magician’s toy. The tool lets you select and image area and it will try to trace around it the best it can. This is good for thing like shapes and fine edges. With a picture of a person or something like that it wouldn’t work too well.

The Brush tool is a simple feature that allows you to write on the canvas as if you were using a paintbrush. This is an old feature that you should be used to unless you are brand new to the Adobe Creative Suite line of products.

The Penic tool enables you to write as if you were writing with a pencil. The difference is this pencil as different lead sizes and colors.

The Eraser tool allows you to erase anything on the canvas. You can’t erase the background of the canvas if you set that to be something different from white.

The tools used to enhance an image in a certain way. The Blur tool is used to blur an image to your specifications by adding pixels to the image. The Sharpen tool is used to sharpen an image by taking away pixels. The Dodge tool lightens up an area by adding a lighter shade of the natural colors in the area that you selected. The Burn tool darkens an area by adding a darker shade of natural colors in the area that you selected. The Smudge tool smears the image by moving the pixels around in odd directions to almost come up with a complete different image.

The following tools have distinct similarities because they are able to take a piece of an image and do something very useful with that information. For instance, the Rubber Stamp Tool allows you to take a piece of an image and put it anywhere else. The Replace Color Tool allows you to take a color and replace with another. The Red Eye Removal Tool can fix problems with red eye in Adobe Photoshop. I have a specific tutorial on this in the Adobe Photoshop Tutorial section labeled as Adobe Photoshop Red Removal Tutorial.

The Line Tool is only good for making lines of different length and width.

The Pen Tool allows you to draw like you have a pen on the screen. It is quite useful if you want to draw in some fine details by doing it freehand. The Vector Pen Tool allows you to change vector graphics and manipulate the lines within them with this special pen tool. You can use the Redraw Path Tool to copy a segment or extend its path with this tool.

The next list of features is all different styles of shapes. I won’t go into explaining them because they pretty much explain themselves. Once you see the picture of what they will make you will know what to do with them. As always, you can move them on their axis to spin them around but you really can’t do it 3d unless you have a plug-in. The list of features is the following: Rectangle Tool, Ellipse Tool, Polygon Tool, Arrow, Beveled Rectangle, Chamfer Rectangle, Connector Line, Doughnut,, L-Shape, Pie, Rounded Rectangle, Smart Polygon, Spiral, and Star

This is the Text Tool that you use to write on images with different fonts, colors, and sizes. If you look to the write you see a section called styles with different pre-made color backgrounds. I actually got my colors for my main website from this palette. It is a very useful tool within itself.

The Freeform Tool lets you bend and reshape vector objects to your will. It pretty much makes and erases anchor points to bend the shape. The Reshape Area Tool can make a pretty cool magnifying glass type object within your image. The Path Scrubber Tool – Additive (0) and the Path Scrubber Tool – Subrative (0) allows you to manipulate strokes. The additive makes the width of the strokes bigger and the subtractive makes them smaller.

The Knife Tool allows you to cut an area of a photo into pieces to have it transformed into a useable webpage format. This same feature is in Adobe Photoshop.

The use of areas on a graphic for navigational points is a widely used feature. We used to have to cut this area out first and then place it back in as an image link. However the use of hotspots makes this a lot easier. There are three different types of hotspots that Adobe Fireworks makes. They are the Rectange, Circle, and Polygon Hotspot Tools. You can use these shapes to make a defined area in an image a hotspot for a link or anchor point.

The Slice Tool and Polygon Slice Tool are just like the knife tool except they are the exact same tools that Adobe Photoshop uses to make the cuts for additions to website backgrounds.

The Hide Slices and Hotspots feature does exactly what it says.

The Show Slices and Hotspots feature does exactly what it says.

The Eyedropper Tool allows you to take a color sample from one part of an image and place it someplace else.

The Paint Bucket Tool allows you to take a color and put it over a wide area in an object. The Gradient Tool allows you to shade a color from light to dark. I like to use gradients a lot whenever possible. They bring a certain flavor to your graphics.

The Pencil Color Palette allows you to pick any color for your pencil that you want or even to make a new color if you need it.

The Paint Bucket Color Palette allows you to pick any color for your paint bucket that you want or even to make a new color if you need too.

This tutorial on Adobe Fireworks CS3 has given you a little taste of the new feature placements and abilities. I hope that you are able to fully understand what I have taught in this tutorial and will continue to explore what this program and the other Adobe CS3 programs are capable of. If you are looking for how you can possibly learn more about Adobe Fireworks or any other Adobe product there are some really good tutorial software programs that teach very well. Most of them provide video tutorials that take you step by step through every feature and process of within each product in detail. The possibility of getting lost or losing focus is minimal because you are in control of the rate of speed that you learn. I personally recommend Total Training because of its great information and detail. They are also a partner of Adobe. Digital Media Studios also has a very good series of products that may be a better solution for some individuals. Remember that with time you can unlock the Adobe Guru in you!

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If you would like something that is a bit more contemporary, why not settle down and read a good book. This Adobe Fireworks CS3 is written by the Adobe Creative Team. It provides great information for learning the ins and outs of the program. If you have the mindset to read attentively, I personally recommend this book.