Macromedia Fireworks 8: Training from the Source at Dominant Systems Book Store

If you learn best by doing, and what you’re intent on doing is create stunning Web graphics with Macromedia Fireworks 8, this is the place to turn. The best-selling tutorial book on Fireworks has been completely updated to get you hands-on fast with all of the program’s most important features, including its newest: additional blend modes, support for special characters and AutoShape properties, workflow improvements, and more. Through project-based lessons that equal 16 to 20 hours of instruction, you’ll cover the entire process of creating Web graphics with Fireworks 8—from creating images to optimizing and exporting them. Simple step-by-step instructions, loads of screen shots, and a CD with media files and a trial version of the program will have you creating rollovers, pop-ups, and more in no time. Whether you’re new to the world of Fireworks graphics or a veteran user eager to tap the power of the latest version, you’ll find the trusted, Macromedia-certified instruction you need in these pages.

Customer Reviews & Comments
Before I purchased this book, I was a complete newbie when it came to graphical softwares. I had no idea what book to get. Fireworks 8 was brand new at the time, and there weren't many available tutorials for it, nevermind reviews. I decided on FW8: Training from the Source from basing the series' integrity on the reviews for FW7: Training from the Source, which were fantastic. Otherwise, I would not have bought this book. Just the concept of learning something from the actual company, seemed monotonous and mundane. I expected a boring manual. :/ When the book finally arrived, I was seriously impressed with the general presentation and easy-to-understand explanation for beginners. I had read several tutorials of web languages and other programs like DW before, but this book was extremely precise and thorough with the instructions. It also has a lot of pictures, which is something I always cherish. The tutorial also comes packed with a CD, including graphical elements you will manipulate and incorporate into your lessons. This is highly efficient, because you have the exact same image the author is refering to. Other books would just order you to fish for photos online, resulting in tedious time consumption and disimilar results. The book slowly works you up from the ground from art editing to hotspot tools. Eventually through the process, you'll create the exemplified website from the book, which looks fantastic and professional for a ma-and-pa candy store. However, there is one monumental flaw in either the book or the graphical software. Websites designed in Fireworks 8 are incompatible with non-Internet Explorer browsers. So if anyone were to view your site through say, Mozilla Firefox or Netscape, they would just see a slew of collapsed images and something completely different from what you see. So the point of teaching you how to construct a website and exporting it to the Dreamweaver is quite futile. I would recommend you skip that particular portion of the configurations chapter. FW8 is a graphics editing tool and it is strongly discouraged if one were to use it beyond the context of designing and authoring a graphic. If you want a WEBdesign editing tool, you need to purchase Dreamweaver 8. Another folly of the book worth mentioning is its lack of a "How to Create Great Font Designs and Logos!" Fireworks 8 is capable of designing great custom logos and designs through filtering and layering, but the book's coverage on this section is shallow to nonexistent. I suggest you do a search for "fireworks font," where you'll find links to some great font creations through FW8. This will come in handy if you were to design a sophisticated font for your website logo or graphic. But despite the shortcomings, and what's ultimately more important to the broad picture, is that you learn the basics of Fireworks 8 in a smooth and enjoyable process. I have never read a better tutorials book for a web language or program, period. If you're a novice-intermediate FW user, I honestly refuse to recommend a more qualified book. With this book and prior web knowledge, I was able to design a professionally-styled website GuyFactor... (figure out the rest) ;)

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