Adobe Fireworks CS3

You can use the stroke setting for the Brush tool in Adobe Fireworks to create a natural brush stroke right on your computer. This brush stroke mimics that of a real brush stroke that might be painted in a studio. It’s easy to add this natural brush stroke to your Firework documents.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks and open an existing document that you would like to a natural brush stroke to, or start a new, blank document.
2. Step 2

   Click on the “Brush tool” from the Fireworks toolbox. Notice that the Properties inspector at the bottom of the screen now displays the properties for the brush tool.

3. Step 3

   Click on the “Stroke category” drop down menu, point to “Airbrush” and click on “Basic.”

4. Step 4

   Set any other settings you would like to apply to the brush stroke such as the tip size and edge. None of these settings will effect getting the look of a natural brush stroke.

5. Step 5

   Draw on your document with your Brush tool to create a line, shape, image or anything else you would like to create using a natural brush stroke.

6. Step 6

   Pause for a 1 to 2 seconds after drawing each stroke with your Brush tool. This pause will leave a slightly thicker spot at the end of the brush stroke. This thicker spot looks much like the end of a natural brush stroke.

In just a few steps, you can use an object you have created or an image in Adobe Fireworks CS3 to create an animated symbol. This is a straightforward way to take an object or image and make it animated. You can then choose to use standard animation settings or take the time to create each frame for your animated symbol.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks CS3 and open a Fireworks document from your files that contains an image or object you want to convert to an animation symbol.
2. Step 2

   Select the image or object you want to convert to an animation symbol from the Layers palette so that layer is highlighted.

3. Step 3

   Choose the “Modify” menu, point to “Symbol” and select “Convert to Symbol.” The Convert to Symbol dialog box will open onto the Fireworks screen.

4. Step 4

   Type a name for the new symbol in the “Name” text box. Select “Animation” for the “Type” of symbol that you want to create from the object.

5. Step 5

   Click the “OK” button to close the Convert to Symbol dialog box and open the Animate dialog box.

6. Step 6

   Select the animation settings you want to use in the Animate dialog box. You can choose the number of frames, distance of move, direction of move, scale, opacity and rotation. Use the “Edit” button to create your animation by physically moving the frames.

7. Step 7

   Press the “OK” button to close the Animate dialog box. The object you selected is now an animated symbol.

Objects, such as shapes, can be filled in many different ways in Adobe Fireworks. A colorful way to fill an object is by using a gradient fill. A gradient fill is two or more colors that blend together in a variety of ways.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks and open an existing document that contains a shape or other vector object that you would like to fill with a gradient.
2. Step 2

   Select the object you want to fill. Once selected, it will be surrounded by blue sizing handles. You will notice that the properties for the selected object are now displayed in the Property inspector at the bottom of the screen.

3. Step 3

   Click on the “Fill category” drop down menu in the Property inspector, point to “Gradient” and click on the type of gradient you would like to use to fill the object.

4. Step 4

   Click the color well before the “Fill category” drop down menu to choose a color to use for the gradient fill. You can choose to use a set of preset colors or you can choose your own custom colors by clicking on the object beside the color wheel in the color well pop-up box.

An empty bitmap mask can easily be created in Adobe Fireworks CS3. This mask can be used to hide or emphasize objects within your document. The steps below will walk you through how you can create a bitmap mask and apply it to an object within your Fireworks document.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks CS3 and open an existing document that contains an object you would like to create an empty bitmap mask for.
2. Step 2

   Select the object in the document that you want to create an empty mask for by clicking on it. The object will be surrounded by blue sizing handles once it is selected.

3. Step 3

   Choose the “Modify” menu and click “Reveal All” to create a mask over the whole document except the selected object or click “Hide All” to create a mask only over the selected object.

4. Step 4

   Select the Brush, Paint Bucket, Gradient or Pencil tool from the Fireworks toolbox on the left side of the screen.

5. Step 5

   Use the settings on the Properties Inspector at the bottom of the screen to set the settings for the selected tool such as color, thickness and opacity.

6. Step 6

   Draw on top of the empty bitmap mask with the selected tool. If you picked “Reveal All,” when you draw the object underneath where you draw will be shown. If you picked “Hide All,” you will cover the objects underneath by drawing with your tool.

A stroke is a line that surrounds an object in your Adobe Fireworks document, such as a shape. You can set the stroke attributes based on the type of stroke you want, the thickness of the stroke and the texture of the stroke. Keep reading to find out how to set the stroke attributes to your Fireworks objects.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks and open an existing document that contains an object to which you would like to apply a stroke.
2. Step 2

   Select the object by clicking on it. You should see blue sizing handles surrounding the object. Notice that the fill and stroke properties for the object are now displayed at the bottom of the screen on the Properties inspector.

3. Step 3

   Click on the “Stroke category” menu and click on “Stroke options” to bring up stroke attributes.

4. Step 4

   Choose the type of stroke you would like to apply from the “Stroke category” and then “Stroke name” menus in the “Stroke options” box.

5. Step 5

   Use the “Tip size” box and the “Edge softness” slider in the “Stroke options” box to set the size of the tip and the softness of the tip used in the stroke.

6. Step 6

   Decide if you would like to base the stroke on a texture. If so, choose a texture from the “Texture” drop down menu and set the amount of texture in the corresponding box within the “Stroke options” box.

You can use the Transparency tools in the Optimize panel of the Adobe Fireworks CS3 to add or remove transparency in an image. This is a simple way to get a transparent background or other area for your image.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks CS3 and open an image to which you would like to change the transparency of at least part of the image.
2. Step 2

   Choose the “Window” menu and click “Optimize” from the menu to bring up the “Optimize” palette, if necessary.

3. Step 3

   Use the “Export file format” drop-down list from the “Optimize” palette and select “GIF” from the top of the list. Selecting the “IF file format will allow you to change the transparency in the image.

4. Step 4

   Select “Index Transparency” from the “Transparency” drop-down list in the “Optimize” palette.

5. Step 5

   Click the “Add color to transparency” button at the bottom of the “Optimize” palette. It is the first button on the bottom row. After you click this button, the mouse will become an eye dropper.

6. Step 6

   Click a color in the open image that you want to make transparency. The color you selected will become transparent in the image.

7. Step 7

   Use the “Remove color from transparency” button (second button on the bottom row of the Optimize palette) to remove any colors from being transparent. Once clicked, use the eye dropper tool to click on the color that you want to not be transparent in the image.

Any image that is made out of pixels, such as a photograph, is a bitmap image. You will need to follow a special process when cropping these bitmap images. Through cropping, you can get the image the exact size that you want while trimming away anything you don’t want to be included with the image. Follow the steps below to learn how to crop bitmap images in Fireworks.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks CS3 and open a document that contains a bitmap image that you want to crop or create a new blank document and insert a bitmap image that you can crop.
2. Step 2

   Select the bitmap image that you would like to crop by clicking on it. It will be surrounded by a blue outline and sizing handles, once it is selected.

3. Step 3

   Choose the “Edit” menu and click “Crop Selected Bitmap.” The bitmap image will now be surrounded by a black, dashed outline and black sizing handles. This type of outline indicates that you are ready to crop the selected bitmap image.

4. Step 4

   Click on a sizing handle and drag the handle inward or outward to set the cropping area. The area that lies inside the dashed outline will be the part of the image that is kept after the crop.

5. Step 5

   Use the other sizing handles to resize the cropping area by dragging them inward or outward.

6. Step 6

   Double-click anywhere inside the dashed outline that surrounds the bitmap image. The image will be cropped, deleting any part of the image that was outside the dashed outline.

A shadow effect can be applied to any object in Adobe Fireworks CS3 to add a drop shadow to that object. This quick process will get a result that adds dimension and interest to your document. Follow the steps below to apply the drop shadow effect in Fireworks.

1. Start Adobe Fireworks CS3, and open an existing document that contains an object to which you would like to apply a shadow effect.
2. Step 2

   Select the Pointer tool from the Fireworks toolbox and click to choose the object in the document to which you would like to apply the shadow. The Properties pane at the bottom of the screen will display the properties for the chosen object.

3. Step 3

   Click the “+” button by the word “Filters” on the right side of the Properties pane to display a pop-up menu. Point to “Shadow and Glow,” and click on “Drop Shadow.” A basic drop shadow will be applied to the selected object, and the effect will be listed as “Drop Shadow” under the word “Filters.”

4. Step 4

   Double-click “Drop Shadow” from the list to display a small window that contains the settings for the drop shadow you have just added.

5. Step 5

   Change the number in the distance text box to modify the distance of the drop shadow. You can click on the color well to change the color of the shadow or check the “Knockout” option to take the object away and only keep the shadow.

6. Step 6

   Use the settings on the right side of the small window to change the opacity, softness and angle of the drop shadow.

Digital water bubbles are easier to paint than you might think, even in applications like Fireworks that have more primitive paint tools. Fireworks’ blend modes, opacity and quick duplication options can turn simple dots into a fountain of dimensional bubbles.

1. Open your water source image (water bottle, water glass, fish bowl). Lock the bitmap layer with your base image in the Layer palette. You don’t want to paint on it accidentally.
2. Step 2

   Create a new paint layer above your bitmap layer. Click on the “New Bitmap Image” layer in the Layer palette options bar.

3. Step 3

   Paint a dozen or more bubble shadows in a vertical row over your water area. The bubbles don’t have to be in a perfectly straight line. Set the color to dark gray, the brush width to 12 to 15 pixels, the brush edge to 5 and the blend mode to “Hard Light.”

4. Step 4

   Add bubble highlights on top of the shadows. Don’t paint them in dead center; consider your light source and paint them from one of the shadow corners. Set the color to white, reduce the brush width by 3 pixels, and soften the brush edge to 15.

5. Step 5

   Choose the Pointer tool and click on any of the bubbles. They will be selected as a group. Option + drag the bubbles to duplicate the row. Continue until the bubbles fill the water.

6. Step 6

   Set the bubble layer blend mode to “Soft Light.” The bubbles will begin to blend into the water. Reduce the layer opacity as necessary to improve the final blend.

Fireworks are popular on holidays and computer screens as well. You can use Flash CS3 to make your own fireworks display and email the SWF file to families and friends on New Years or Independence Day. A simple gradient burst and a mask can make fireworks of any intensity and color.

1. Draw a circle with a four-color radial gradient on the stage. You can use any four colors you want, but the innermost and outermost colors should have a 0 percent alpha to create a halo effect. Convert the gradient to a graphic symbol (F8). Move it to the top of the stage.
2. Step 2

   Double click on your symbol to switch to the edit window. Create a one-color firework burst shape on a new layer above the color gradient. The burst shape should resemble a series of narrow crescents cascading out from the center. They shouldn’t be uniform.

3. Step 3

   Add keyframes to both layers in frame 15, and a second set of keyframes in frame 60. Select the frames in both layers and choose “Create Motion Tween” from the Insert menu Timeline submenu. You should see arrows on both layers.

4. Step 4

   Add transformations to animate your fireworks. Select both objects in frame 1 and use the Transform palette to scale them to 2 percent. Scale the objects in the final keyframe to 30 percent and set the gradient’s alpha to 0 percent.

5. Step 5

   Select the layer with the burst shape and right click. Choose “Mask” from the context menu. The burst shape will mask the gradient to create the illusion of an exploding firework. Now select the animation frames in both layers and move them forward in the timeline so that they burst begins in frame 15.

6. Step 6

   Create a new layer for the launch flare. Draw a stroke at the center of your fireworks and fill it with a four-color linear gradient (0 percent alpha at each end). Add one keyframe at frame 15 and another at frame 16. Use a motion tween in the first 15 frames to stretch the stroke from the bottom corner to the center of the fireworks and delete the stroke from frame 16.

7. Step 7

   Select your symbol in the library and choose “Duplicate” from the palette options movie to make copies of your fireworks symbol. Change the gradient color in the different copies. Now you can add an entire fireworks display to different points in your main timeline.