Fireworks experts......Question about changing a graphic color

I didn't know which forum to put this in as there wasn't one that was "graphics" and dreamweaver is listed here.

I am trying to use Fireworks to take graphic bars from a Wordpress template and replace the color. I want to learn this myself rather than try to farm it out. I may try several templates for different projects, not like the look so I don't want to spend money on this. I feel like an idiot using Fireworks but I can't for the life of me take an orange graident color graphic bar (.png type from the WP template) and make it pink with a gradient. I have looked all over the web including the adobe site and nothing is "click by click" explanation. I am used to moving around easily in Front page and other Microsoft products so I don't understand why this is so difficult.

I try one thing and nothing changes, I insert the HTML color number in the color palate box and and then try to move my cursor to go to the graphic and it picks up another color. Is there a graphics person on the forum that knows how to work with Fireworks that can help? I think this is something others on the forum would be interested in learning....how to take a graphic/s from a template you like and change the color so it matches your logo and look you want for visitors.

Thanks!