However, the program has such capabilities too, which is a great plus when one’s working in a “mixed” (vectors+bitmaps) design mode, for screen.

The above illustration was created in less than 3 seconds, using a simple photo, and applying a ready-to-use photo style in Fireworks.

Here’s the original:

Photo styles can be installed quite easily and then (re)used in any kinds of situations.

Here are a couple of interesting sets for your attention:

– Photo styles set (1), by Mikko Vartio
– Photo styles set (2), by Linus Lim

The end results can be quite interesting, and it all takes just a couple of clicks! Also note, you can easily create your own styles, for all kinds of possible uses (not limited to slight photo-retouching). :)

(ths is how Vladi saw the colors in the illustration)

(and this is how Vanya Ivanova saw the colors in the illustration)

This is from the same evening, when we, together with some friends, were coloring with water pencils some banjo pigs… Interesting to see that everyone sees different colors in the same drawing, isn’t it? :)

– this is how I interpreted the colors. And here’s another variant — here’s how Ani interpreted the colors:

How we did it? First, print high-res variant of the illustration, then some water pencils to color it, followed by high-res scan and finally, resize/export in Adobe Fireworks. Done!

Note 1: The color variants of Nixo‘s illustrations are under the same CC license as is the original illustration.)
Note 2: No banjo pigs were harmed during the coloring of these pictures! ;)

[ 2560x1600 px, JPG @ 90%, ~1.5 MB / the shot is from Aug. 3, 2009, and was made with Canon S5 IS - -- --- so please ignore the noise present at ISO100 ;) ]

This one wasn’t approved for SimpleDesktops, but I kinda like it, so here it is, released for free! :-)

The wallpaper is in PNG24 file format (created/optimized/exported using Adobe Fireworks, so it’s mere 30 kB in size!) and it is large enough to fit on any screen (2560×1600 px). Also worth mentioning that Ani helped me a lot making this one! :)

On the screenshot you can see selected most of the elements (as vector outlines); some elements in this particular design are also special Symbols and because of that you cannot see their outlines and gradient handles. In the larger version of the screenshot you can also see some of the panels in Fireworks (although a bit darkened, so as to keep focus in the center, on the canvas).

I have often heard people saying that drawing with vectors is not something interesting. I think it is quite the opposite — it’s extremely interesting, just different from drawing with a pencil or with a Wacom tablet… And if vectors didn’t exist, wonderful series, like Ani’s Friday Bunny or TheOatmeal‘s comic strips, wouldn’t be possible!

Sometimes, trying to re-create small parts of the real world with the help of vectors, live effects, gradients, layers and sub-layers, lights and shadows, and other similar digital “bricks”, can be both a challenging and time-consuming task…

There are some really crazy illustrators, like Fred Michel (I have mentioned his work in my latest article for Smashing Mag):

(This Volkswagen Tiguan illustration took him at least a few weeks of hard work in Fireworks!)

There are even crazier illustrators, who can spend thousands of hours in Illustrator (and Photoshop) and re-create models of real ships, all in vectors!

Yes, not the same as drawing by hand, but beautiful and interesting, in its own way!

And drawing with Fireworks is very fun! It’s true that Adobe Fireworks is not as powerful as Adobe Illustrator — but on the other hand, it’s easy to use, it’s more intuitive, and it can do one thing extremely well (design for Web and screen), instead of trying to do all things at the same time, like the latest version of Photoshop, which tries to be a photo editor, a Web design tool (quite cumbersome and hard to use, IMHO), a 3D application, and also a coffee machine (note: coffee making option will be available only in the next version of Ps;-).

With Fireworks, almost anyone can start learning to combine colors and shapes just within a few minutes; in Fireworks, you can work in a mixed vector/bitmap mode, which gives a lot of flexibility to the designer; adding, removing and editing of live effects is very easy; gradients are a few times better than those that you can find in Ai и Ps; the unnecessary complexity of the “Layers, Sub-layers” concept is missing (a concept that is typical for Photoshop) — layers do exist in Fireworks, but you rather work with objects, which speeds up your work; you can create simply funny (or useful) small animations very fast; and there are many other things, which are probably a matter for another blog post…

Of course, work with vectors you can also do in Illustrator, Flash, CorelDraw, Inkscape, and many other programs (commercial and freeware ones) — we all have our tool of preference. For me (because what I mostly do every day is “pushing pixels”, for the Web and screen), this is Fireworks — I think that at the moment this is the best tool for the job.

* * *

Maybe I’ll dedicate more attention to this topic some other time, but now I’d like to finish with a little note about my Daily Design project, which little by little became a Weekly Design project… ;)

The idea was very different, at the beginning of this year. But while I was trying to invent something new each day, some design doodle or illustration, I’ve found out that ideas become more and more scarce and when bringing them to life, I had two choices: make things really well, in greater detail (but I needed to spend quite a few hours for this purpose), or make something very quickly (but with not much attention to detail). At some point I preferred to stop trying to catch some schedule, and instead waited for the good ideas to come, and then dedicated up to a few hours to make their close-to-perfect implementation.

Well, one might say that I failed in my original idea to create something new every day, for one year; on the other hand, I actually succeeded, because by the end of the year I will probably have at least 50 new illustrations/designs, created for my own pleasure, and will also learn new tricks and techniques in the field of digital design! :)

…And now, if you please excuse me, I have to go — I have an important appointment with a vector bunny friend, who is afraid of being watched — I think I’ll be watching him closely at least for the next 5 minutes or so! ;)

This is only 2 minutes work, done in Adobe Fireworks.

If you’d like to see a bit more serious design/illustration work, done in Fireworks, feel free to check my latest Smashing Magazine article!

(@zeldman: thanks for the re-tweet! and, errm… glad you liked it so much!;-)

The Power of Adobe Fireworks: What Can You Achieve With It?

A few days later, the article has over 100 comments, was re-tweeted over 1000 times (!), managed to get to the front page of delicio.us (as one of the most bookmarked online resources for one day), and was mentioned even by cool dudes such as Matthew Inman, whose comic strip TheOatmeal is also 100% pure Fireworks work.

Among all the interesting, valuable, pointless, positive and negative comments, I mostly liked comments like “Why you put the Firefox logo at the beginning of the article, if the article is about Fireworks?”… ;)

Anyway… after a few nights of hard work (and countless days, spent in front of my ThinkPad with a cup of coffee), the article was finally published… but right now I am just feeling tired.

Writing my smashing article #2 was actually very fun and inspiring, but now there’s only work ahead of me, so… I’m going back to my ThinkPad and my cup of coffee! ;)

This is the Lord of the Fireworks, @djori — and he is a true Master of the Kites (but I am the true Master of Fireworks)! ;-)

( variant #2 )

Lo and behold! an hour or two later, he sent to me the Red Watch Rebound:

[ download Fireworks PNG ]

As you can see, everything is in the details, and I must admit, I like his variant much more. Cool job, Dave, and thanks for sharing it! ;)