Usually you can achieve top notch results by just applying some basic techniques in Adobe Fireworks. To create a nice piece of cheese, you can see below, I will use some gradient fills, some shape making and a bit of free hand pen tool. It is a good idea to google up some nice reference image while making such objects I did look take a peek at some of them myself before I made this.
When it comes to tweaking and improving photos Photoshop is second to none. I am far from being a serious photographer. In fact I really rarely use the camera but one thing I know for sure, that is that by using curves in Photoshop you can improve the photos’ color and general look significantly. I will show you how to use curves on one real example. Few years ago a friend of mine visited Andes mountains and took many snapshots, I will use one of his photos to show you what you can achieve by using curves in Photoshop.
Adobe Fireworks is really awesome tool but when it comes to finding resources sometimes it can drive you mad . You can find what ever you think of for Photoshop but if you are looking for some set of styles or source files for Fireworks well that is another story. Never the less here is my small contribution to Adobe Fireworks community, a nice set of gold gradient styles for you to use as pleased.
More than a year ago I wrote article about should you design for IE6. Things have changed and I don’t support it any more for some time. If you check this site in IE6 (if you still own that relict) I am sure it would look really bad. Don’t get me wrong if a client asks for IE6 support I would go along but unless I really have to I wouldn’t touch that stuff. IE6 is history and HTML5 is here to stay. There are still headaches, IE7 and IE8 have minds of their own too but IE6 was pure evil I tell you.
Creating cool gold credit card icon in Adobe Fireworks is really easy once you get the grasp of some of the basic tools. In this tutorial I will show you how to use various gradients, some masking approach and some other easy but effective tricks. Of course I will include the original source file with all the styles used so you can check it out for yourself if you have some problems with following this tutorial.
As a web or a graphic designer you don’t need to use Photoshop, there are many other cool editors which can be your weapon of choice. I write often about Adobe Fireworks and Illustrator but I use Photoshop just as well. I use Photoshop for what it is the best and that is photo editing and manipulation. For prototyping and making mockups in my opinion Fireworks rules but some things are missing and than Photoshop comes to rescue.
Another great and easy Adobe Fireworks tutorial. Nice thing about this tutorial is that this technique can be applied almost the same way in most graphic editors (Illustrator, Photoshop…). I choose to write about Adobe Fireworks more often because there are tons of Photoshop and other tutorials and that is not fair since Fireworks deserves more attention. It is pretty easy to find a neat seamless image to use as a background in web pages but sometimes you just cannot find what you are looking for or you want to make something special and unique.
Styles are the basics in Adobe Fireworks and it is very important to master their use at the very beginning if you intend to use Fireworks as the main tool of the trade. If you are familiar with Photoshop’s layer style than it is very similar thing with styles in Fireworks. But don’t worry if you don’t know Photoshop, if you are interested in Fireworks only you don’t need to know a thing about Photoshop.
Some time ago I wrote tutorial on how to create a business website mockup using Adobe Fireworks based on 960 grid system. I have spiced it up a bit and made it more eye pleasing and converted it to pure HTML5. On other occasion I will do explaining on how to port design to HTML but now I present you fully working template ready to use. You can use this template as you wish. I have used some free icons from the web and awesome jQuery slideshow called FlexSlider from madebymuffin.com.
Power of Adobe Fireworks is not only in fast web and app prototyping but also in mighty vector handling. This tutorial is going to show you how you can create cute character using some of the basic tools and techniques. Fist of all characters are not my thing but I was inspired by this cute creatures made by great designers from Turbomilk. I have tried to recreate at least something similar. I will explain how i made this cute cat you can see below.
I offer various design services at a very affordable price. Design services include:
Feel free to check on my portfolio to get familiar with my skills and style. Contact me any time krstatzar{at}gmail.com