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First Tutorial Posted!

Finally! Last night I uploaded my first tutorial to the pixel forge section of the site. It’s a Fireworks tutorial that discusses image background removal using a mix of vector and bitmap tools and functionality newly available in Fireworks 8 (specifically, the Marquee to Path feature). You can find the tutorial here:

Removing Image Backgrounds With Fireworks 8

If you have any questions about that tutorial then please ask them here in a comment to this post. If you have requests for new tutorial you can post them in a comment here as well or send them directly to me through my contact page.

I have other tutorials nearing completion including the "Why Choose Fireworks" article I "announced" on Macromedian Scott Fegette’s blog. The article is almost done but part of that article discusses Fireworks workflow advantages and masking is definitely one of them. Instead of detailing the steps in that article and lengthening it needlessly, I decided to write a full fledged tutorial and link to to it in the article instead. Now that it’s published I can go back to finishing the "Why Choose Fireworks" article as well as my adaptaion of the Photoshop watermarking tutorial for SlideShowPro users as well as several others that are in varying stages of completion.

Enjoy the new tutorial and post your comments!

7 thoughts on “First Tutorial Posted!”

  1. Thanks for the tutorial. I really want to like Fireworks. I really do. But I must point out that you can do the same thing with Photoshop using a layer mask, and in fewer steps. And, since they are on the same layer, you can do things with blend modes, transparency, etc. that you can’t do in FW.

    What is missing in the Fireworks community is tutorial and documentation of the features unique to Fireworks, things that Fireworks can do best. Instead all that I see is Photoshop wannabees.

    Here is the future: make the graphic in Photoshop; make it useful for the web in Fireworks. and they will “talk” to each other the way that PS and Imageready do now.

    There s just too much redundancy in these apps…

    -ddog

    Reply
  2. Very good tutorial!

    Just tried it, worked like a miracle! Very useful, too! :-)

    Thank you!

    I only maybe am unable to grasp the end of the article, about how to change the color of the ring, using the Ruby Mask technique…

    [quote]
    …you can set its fill color to red and change the object’s Blend mode to Overlay
    [/quote]

    How do I change the blend mode to overlay?

    :-)

    Thanks, Michel

    Reply
  3. Hello Michel,

    You can change the blend mode to overlay in either the Property Inspector or the Layers Panel. The Blend Mode drop down is right besides the Opacity control in both places.

    By the way, the Ruby Mask technique is not for coloring the ring but simply to be able to *see* it when you edit the vector mask shape on top of it.

    Thank you for your kind words!

    Reply
  4. Thanks, Stephane!

    I’ve found it, but still unable to reproduce the effect by myself… maybe missing some step. I’ll look closer at the work files again one of these days… i have a lot of work lately and barely have time to see something new… :(

    I am glad, though, that I’ve managed to find 5 free minutes to complete your excellent tutorial!

    I use Fireworks since version MX, and am very happy with this program! It’s lightweight, it’s smart, its interface is intuitive and easy to learn, and to create the perfect web graphics it’s more than powerful! :-)

    I am happy there are so many users around the world that like it and use it everyday in their work or leisure tasks! :)))

    Have a nice day!

    M.

    PS Should we expect more tutorials in the future? :-)

    Reply

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