Fireworks VS Photoshop

vibrokatana

vibrokatana

New Member
While Photoshop is nice, costing at over 600 dollars does not exactly make it cost effective for the average person. Fireworks has much of the needed feature set, while also offering slightly more. This is basically my interest into the comparisons between them and the problems of each.

Fireworks:

Pro:
- Costs $250 retails and 150 to upgrade
- Is geared more towards content creation, supports vectors and bitmaps pretty well.
- Has a lot of the tools from PS

Cons:
- When editing the cursor tends to lag horribly (like playing a game at 1 FPS, eh). While in PS it I have yet to see it do so.
- Opening large files can be much slower (CS3) in comparison with PS. One of my PSDs takes over 50 seconds compared to one or two in PS!
- Is missing several tools in comparison (patch, healing brush, pattern stamp, quick selection, etc).
- Not exactly 1:1 for PSDs. Color overlays don't seem to be supported :\
- Limited filter selection, especially in comparison from PS

Any other thoughts?
 
I thought Fireworks was for internet content creation and more vector based while Photoshop was more of a general image editor with web stuff on the side, so it depends on what you want it for. I do art/image related things so only Photoshop would be appropriate for me. I use Photoshop 7 though as CS is far too pricey o_O.

Personally the only must have software product for internet creation I want is Flash as there is no alternative program that creates Flash and it's use is widespread. When I get rich I plan on buying that and, along with Photoshop, I should be set as far as internet content creation goes (of yeah I just need to learn html better then php and... :p).

If you haven't already you could try gimp since it's free or see if gimp can output content fireworks can work with.

Side note: Is it just me or is adobe really milking customers for all they are worth putting out overpriced products that do things far to similar to warrant separate products?
 
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Good job Gerbil and Hescominsoon in making informed posts...

Macromedia was bought out by Adobe about 2 years ago. So Fireworks was folded into Adobe's product line with Photoshop.

Adobe is cheap software for the features it offers. Of course for some people, cheap is free. Take Flash for example. It is a vector editor, does animation, internet video, RIA and mobile development platform in one piece of software. $700 is a bargain.

There are plenty of ways to do Flash for free. Adobe provides a free Flash compiler in the Flex SDK. FlashDevelop/HaXe will allow you to write and compile action script into SWFs and there are free tweening libraries available to do basic animations with. Again, you will do a lot more work getting the free solutions to do things you could easily do in the Flash IDE and that is where the price point has to be seriously looked at. My designers make about $35 dollars and hour. If buying Flash over having them use free tools saves them 20 hours of additional work on projects in a year, then it has paid for itself which it does and some.

As far as Fireworks, designers also like it for its batching abilities. From what I see, it looks like Photoshop will continue to be image editing while Fireworks will push into vector and general graphics and compete with products like Corel Draw.
 
Man I thought I would never live w/o photoshop when I had to give back my work laptop, but I gave The Gimp a shot and have been pleasantly surprised. I know that is not your question here. But for a free software Gimp is really powerful and now that it can use PS brushes the stuff available to import in is limitless. I didn't realize how much community support there was for the Gimp as well.
 
The Mighty Gerbil said:
I thought Fireworks was for internet content creation and more vector based while Photoshop was more of a general image editor with web stuff on the side, so it depends on what you want it for. I do art/image related things so only Photoshop would be appropriate for me. I use Photoshop 7 though as CS is far too pricey o_O.
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That is why I am asking. As their tools sets overlap, yet one costs less then half as much.

The Mighty Gerbil said:
Personally the only must have software product for internet creation I want is Flash as there is no alternative program that creates Flash and it's use is widespread. When I get rich I plan on buying that and, along with Photoshop, I should be set as far as internet content creation goes (of yeah I just need to learn html better then php and... :p).
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I'm talking about image editing/touchup. I don't think flash would suit that purpose very well.

The Mighty Gerbil said:
If you haven't already you could try gimp since it's free or see if gimp can output content fireworks can work with.
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I am not going to compare gimp and the like. However nothing I have seen has 1:1 support for PSD features, which can be a pain when you get a file, open it and it looks really bazaar. Also lack of CYMK in gimp is a PITA and can stop you dead in your tracks.
 
Plankeye said:
Good job Gerbil and Hescominsoon in making informed posts...

Macromedia was bought out by Adobe about 2 years ago. So Fireworks was folded into Adobe's product line with Photoshop.
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I know. In fact I own a copy of Macromedia (before buy out) Fireworks and Dreamweaver but I've never used them as I want to do flash and they don't do flash. I also own a copy of Adobe Illustrator 10 but then Photoshop 7 does everything I need already.

Plankeye said:
There are plenty of ways to do Flash for free. Adobe provides a free Flash compiler in the Flex SDK. FlashDevelop/HaXe will allow you to write and compile action script into SWFs and there are free tweening libraries available to do basic animations with.
Click to expand...

Really? I'll look into this TY. I may have overlooked it when I went on the hunt a while back as I want to be able to do games and may have figured it would be too hard that way.

Plankeye said:
Adobe is cheap software for the features it offers. Of course for some people, cheap is free. Take Flash for example. It is a vector editor, does animation, internet video, RIA and mobile development platform in one piece of software. $700 is a bargain.

There are plenty of ways to do Flash for free. Adobe provides a free Flash compiler in the Flex SDK. FlashDevelop/HaXe will allow you to write and compile action script into SWFs and there are free tweening libraries available to do basic animations with. Again, you will do a lot more work getting the free solutions to do things you could easily do in the Flash IDE and that is where the price point has to be seriously looked at. My designers make about $35 dollars and hour. If buying Flash over having them use free tools saves them 20 hours of additional work on projects in a year, then it has paid for itself which it does and some.
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I said "the only must have software product for internet creation I want is Flash" so I am not saying "Flash isn't worth it", in fact I singled it out as needed (and if Adobe has anything to say it will remain so, remember Adobe was pushing SVG before it bought out it's competitor). It is however expensive to me as I have 0 money to spend on such things. If I got paid 35 dollars an hour it would be cheap to me too... need to outsource some work? huh, huh??? :D.

I do think there are Adobe products that overlap too much in function with other products to warrant a whole product and upgraded versions also come out far to often offering too little differences. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_release_history only 2 years between each upgrade with each adding seemingly little reason to create a new product (with one year between some). Honestly how can anyone come up with must have new features on a regular basis anyway?

Anyway back to topic. As far as image editing when I bought Photoshop 7 I did not know about gimp (years ago 2002~) so I've never personally compared them, only read many glowing reports about Gimp. Basically for the digital painter (which is what I want to do) there are 2 options Photoshop and Corel Painter (drools but doesn't regret choice). I went with Photoshop because it's allows me to do more overall. I can output web pages, create game textures, create camera ready artwork, open most formats my father's printing company requires and edit them all. As far as my knowledge of fireworks goes I know very little. The wiki lists it as a vector and bitmap editor and Adobe says
Accelerate web design and development with Adobe® Fireworks® CS3 software, the ideal tool for creating and optimizing images for the web and rapidly prototyping websites.
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If you want to do image editing that's not what you need. If you don't know vector artwork is defined by a series of vertexes like a 2D game polygon is (except you can have curves) it is un-suited to editing photos or images but great for creating masks/selections, small file sizes (thus web) or cell shaded type art. As far as editing bitmaps I do all my work in .psd files or on layers in rbg mode, I always convert from bitmap files. If you haven't already Adobe has a trial version available of all its programs so I would definitely try it before buying. Try putting a political figure's head on a inappropriate body that's always a good test :p.

If you want to save a few bucks it's possible to hunt down a legitimate reseller on Ebay of an older copy of Photoshop and then buy the upgrade (which is how I got my copy years ago). However there are a lot of scammers (and even more incompetent people) out there and you absolutely must have the registration transferred to your name or you will not be able to upgrade. You also have to make sure it's not a academic version or a mac version etc. You also have to check which versions are eligible for upgrades (I believe the lowest version you can get is 7 to still be able to upgrade to CS3). Bottom line if you go this route you need to do the research, call Adobe, search Ebay for a long while and double check everything, don't go off of me.

vibrokatana said:
- When editing the cursor tends to lag horribly (like playing a game at 1 FPS, eh). While in PS it I have yet to see it do so.
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Note: If you want to see lag in Photoshop (7 that is) create a standard size document say (300 ppi (resoulution) image 8.5 by 11 inches) paint a few colors on the canvas then try to use the smudge tool with a large brush setting :p.
 
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vibrokatana said:
While Photoshop is nice, costing at over 600 dollars does not exactly make it cost effective for the average person. Fireworks has much of the needed feature set, while also offering slightly more. This is basically my interest into the comparisons between them and the problems of each.
Click to expand...

I thought you were a student. If you are you should be able to buy the whole CS for $200. I got it for my wife from the uni bookshop for pittens ($200AU). I love it as photoshop is good but I also get live trace in illustrator and indesign.

If you are just making touch ups and the sort maybe just get the cut down photoshop which is preety close to free.

On a side note and only cause i love it so much.....painter X ftw.
 
ppar3566 said:
I thought you were a student. If you are you should be able to buy the whole CS for $200. I got it for my wife from the uni bookshop for pittens ($200AU). I love it as photoshop is good but I also get live trace in illustrator and indesign.

If you are just making touch ups and the sort maybe just get the cut down photoshop which is preety close to free.

On a side note and only cause i love it so much.....painter X ftw.
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I may have to look at that. The upgrades arn't bad either, paying 150 or so every 2-3 years for upgrades sounds like a good deal (instead of 1200+, eek). The only problem is if my college store contains the proper versions.
 
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vibrokatana said:
I may have to look at that. The upgrades arn't bad either, paying 150 or so every 2-3 years for upgrades sounds like a good deal (instead of 1200+, eek). The only problem is if my college store contains the proper versions.
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You should be right mate. I just remembered that I didnt end up getting it from uni (I looked at it there but ended up getting it elsewhere). I got it from my local JB Hi-FI (like a big software, CDs, and games store - not sure if you have that store over there). All I needed to do was send in a fax to Adobe with my student card and they gave me my registration key.

It is worth noting that I have brought both CS2 and CS3 this way.
 
vibrokatana said:
Elements GUI is horrible. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.
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I haven't used it in years and even then only a little while so I can't say anything about it other than it's a lot cheaper than Photoshop.

Just curious but what exactly do you want to do with this anyway? Just general color correction or full blown image creation?
 
The Mighty Gerbil said:
Just curious but what exactly do you want to do with this anyway? Just general color correction or full blown image creation?
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Color correction, redrawing, typesetting and also for layouts. Most of the time GIMP will blow up when given a PSD, or not render properly (*cough* layer effects). Elements doesn't support CYMK either :\
 
Not sure what you mean by "redrawing" but I do all the others on a regular basis. So you know Photoshop 7 isn't the greatest at typesetting but they may have improved it by CS3 (it's not like word or something like that). Still I do business cards, forms, contracts, ads, etc. so I am sure it will work.

Why are you after CYMK? Do you need the black channel for adjustments or are you doing professional printing? As far as I know it's not really necessary for outputting to a normal color printer. I actually work in RBG for all my stuff but then I don't really handle the printing end of it.

(Photoshop 7 is the only program I claim any proficiency in so I am trying to help, hope I am not annoying you :) )
 
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The Mighty Gerbil said:
Not sure what you mean by "redrawing" but I do all the others on a regular basis. So you know Photoshop 7 isn't the greatest at typesetting but they may have improved it by CS3 (it's not like word or something like that). Still I do business cards, forms, contracts, ads, etc. so I am sure it will work.

Why are you after CYMK? Do you need the black channel for adjustments or are you doing professional printing? As far as I know it's not really necessary for outputting to a normal color printer. I actually work in RBG for all my stuff.

(not trying to dissuade you it's just Photoshop 7 is the only program I claim any proficiency in so I am trying to help :) )
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The problem is I sometimes get a document in CYMK and it stops you literally in your tracks. As for printing, most of the shops around here want CYMK, you can do otherwise but it is often funny what comes out. CS3 is very good for typesetting, provided you arn't trying to write a paper on it or something...
 
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