I am back after a period of absence and want to ask you a simple (at least I think it is) question; what do most web design professionals use, Photoshop or Fireworks, and why?
That’s it.
Do you mean for designing the actual web graphics? In my experience, graphics are generally designed in Photoshop, though I believe that Fireworks is used for animated graphics.
Most of the professional web designers that I know actually do all of their coding from scratch in a generic text editor like notepad. They don’t let a program generate code for them.
I use Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver & Flash. I hand code everything myself, but Dreamweaver has a lot of tools to automate certain processes. If you do use Dreamweaver click on the “code” tab and don’t let yourself be tempted into letting Dreamweaver creating code for you. That’ll make you lazy and you’ll never learn the basics.
Hope this helps
I mean the web graphics only.
I just took entry level job in a web design and development company (after a bit of freelance here and there) and my boss insist that I have to work with Fireworks and not Photoshop.
I feel that Fireworks is sometimes easier to use than Photoshop but Photoshop is much stronger and can do much more than Fireworks.
He says (my boss) that all professionals use it but I am not that sure.
So basically I just want your opinions.
Fireworks is commonly used because it used to come packaged with Flash and Dreamweaver. It’s a decent tool and is fine to use for professional web design, but of course you’re right about Photoshop as well.
I am thinking the same thing about Fireworks.
Anyway I will have to learn it a bit, but right now I am so disappointed by my boss and the level and quality of his knowledge.
At least the two programmers we have there are so good and helpful and they really know their stuff. I have been there 3 weeks now and I have learned more things from them by far than I have from my boss, who was supposed to tutor me.
Illustrator is the defacto standard in illustration.
Photoshop is nice since you can create droplets increasing the speed of your workflow.
I’d go in this order for web graphics design tools:
Illustrator
Flash
Photoshop
InDesign
All these apps merge seamlessly w/ Dreamweaver.
Just remember. Save the file as it’s native format, then import into dreamweaver.
i.e. I have an .ai (illustrator) file. Just open dreamweaver and import the .ai file, no need to convert and doo all kinds of strange things if you don’t have to.
Same here.. Adobe is the way to go. Just have to be careful jumping on the upgrade bandwagon right off the bat. Give them about 6 months to a year to let the newest version get out there and troubleshoot it, and you’ll get a much cleaner version when you upgrade. There just really is no way for them to test everything us designers will do to it before they let it out, so they rely heavily on feedback to clean it up after it’s release. You can see this process happening with CS3 right now. People just bought it love it, those that bought it when it first came out hated it. If you must have the latest and greatest right away, my suggestion is to keep an eye on Adobe for updates to get it running smooth.
Good point Christy.
I’m going to upgrade to CS3 during this christmas season. I’ve seen enough good reports to be OK w/ upgrading. Another reason not to U/G right away is Adobe customer support gets SLAMMED and you have to wait a month for a help desk case that should take 4 days max.
As a professional web developer. I have never used Fireworks. Not once. But that’s what I would use if I wanted to make animated gifs. For my web graphics, I mainly use Illustrator & Photoshop. I really only use Photoshop when there is an image involved. Otherwise, it is always wise to use Illustrator.
When it comes to the actual coding, I use a program called HTMLkit. It’s basically an intelligent Notepad, but works alot better than programs like Dreamweaver & Frontpage. I highly recommend HTMLkit. Every web developer I have suggested this program too, whether professional or amateur, have loved it and made the switch. It’s a free download you can get somewhere on the internet. Just google it.
