Difference Between Fireworks and Photoshop

Fireworks and Photoshop are among the most widely used applications for web designing but designers have always been wondering about the positive and negative aspects of these two as it is quite difficult to decide which one is better. If you take a close look at the two, you can obviously perform all the tasks in one way or another in both the applications. You can edit graphics, pictures and web pages in Photoshop and Fireworks both. Here we will take a look at the both to determine which one is more suitable under which circumstances.

Photoshop as the name suggests is basically a tool to edit graphics and images. Primarily it wasn’t created to handle graphics and photo editing but with the passage of time and a heavy involvement of graphics in web designs paved the path for addition of web designing features and options in Photoshop. Fireworks, on the other hand, is a tool primarily developed to deal with web designing. As a general rule, Photoshop can be used for web designing but it is better to use Fireworks since it is light weight and handles the web designing tasks better than Photoshop. However you can use a combination of the both as well to handle edit and create web graphics.

If someone is purely dealing with graphics and images the Photoshop is a completely professional package to do so. If some on is more inclined towards web designing then Fireworks is an obviously better choice as compared to Photoshop. If an organisation has to work on both web and graphic designing then they can either use both the applications or they can stick to Photoshop. When editing graphics and images is concerned, Fireworks is not as better as Photoshop.

The selection of tool also depends upon the experience lever of the designer. If someone is using Photoshop from the start then he/ she should stick with it because Photoshop is an ever evolving program which is enhancing its line of options and features every day. If a person is new in the field of web designing then Fireworks is clearly the most suitable choice. Remember in mind that Photoshop contains web features but was not primarily created for web designers. In contrast, Fireworks exclusively aims at web designing thus offering a far better approach for web designing. However, you can pretty much do everything in both the tools so it really depends upon your expertise and comfort level.

Photoshop handles pixel based graphics techniques which is best suited to pixel based monitors. All of the CRT monitors and LCDS currently used are pixel based so Photoshop can ultimately handle all kinds of graphics easily. When compared with Fireworks which offers a different style of graphics handling then Photoshop is liked by many industry professionals. One of the main reasons for the popularity of Photoshop among professionals is that it has been there for so long. It is definitely true that every application has its advantages and disadvantages. Photoshop is not easy to learn. In fact it offers a lot of features that a new person can easily get lost in them. Fireworks, on the other hand, is easy for a beginner and offers a light interface.

In the end, most of the organisations cannot possible perform all tasks easily on one tool so they utilise both of these tools for a faster web design or graphics editing. When we talk of web designing, it mixes both of the things in one. So you have to edit graphics but with web point of view. It is advisable to use a mixture of the two tools for an enhanced productivity.

David O Waters
http://quotebean.co.uk

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