Class Overview for Lessons
- Lesson One: Basic web images
- This lesson introduces you to the graphic formats supported on the web - primarily GIF and JPEG - and how each of these types of images is created in Fireworks. This lesson also covers resizing images, cropping, and rotating images; and how to make part of a GIF image transparent and how to make the background of a photograph transparent.
- Lesson Two: Working with photographs
- This lesson introduces the concept of creating a new image and some of the differences between bitmapped and vector images. Both types of images can be created using Fireworks. We will also see how to use selection tools to select parts of photographs to produce a new photograph, adding text to photographs, and making adjustments in lighting and colors in photographs. Although colors are often okay, it is not unusual to get a photograph which is too dark or too light. Simple adjustments can sometimes greatly improve the photograph.
- Lesson Three: Creating original images
- This lesson introduces creating original art work using the pencil and fill by comparison to the pen tool. It also shows how special shapes can be created and how the gradient tool can help give color variation on part of a page. The text tool will be further explored as well as changing the edges on objects. We also will look at the eraser tool and when it can be used and how the history panel can help you recover from mistakes.
- Lesson Four: The power of layers
- This lesson explores more the power of layers by showing several examples of how layers can be used - to create a drawing in multiple sections, to create a web page header, and to create a photo collage. This lesson looks at some of the options in the layer panel, such as transparency of layers, locking layers, renaming layers, and changing the order of layers. Adding dropped shadows to a photograph and putting text against a vector object/shape are also discussed.
- Lesson Five: Buttons and effects
- How to display grids, which can be used in drawing, and how to add
effects to objects are covered in this lesson, as well as how to create
several buttons from a single graphic. For those of you who want to
explore some more advanced features, this lesson also includes creating
rollover buttons (buttons which change when the mouse is placed over
the button) and how to create disjointed rollovers where the rollover
effect is displaying on another part of the web page.
- Additional
tips releated to web graphics and Fireworks
- Video clips related to topics in the class
This material was created for a distance class on Using Fireworks MX 2004 to Create Basic Web Images, given by Linda Ffolliott, ECAT, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, University of Arizona. For permission to use these materials on your own website, contact ffolinda@ag.arizona.edu