Having Dreamweaver and Fireworks
Submitted by Vadim on Tue, 06/10/2008 - 11:00.
Is it good to have Fireworks and Dreamweaver even though I outsource design and coding?
Let's say maybe I will need to customise further already designed site or make corrections, etc...
Does having those tools can help greatly or it is not necessary?
Thanks,
Vadim
It might not be necessary if
It might not be necessary if you're outsourcing it. These tools are quite expensive, and that's a lot of money just to put out for the occasional tweak or modification.
exactly
There are tons of free tools out there which you can use such as notepad++ for html coding (you need to be familiar with HTML of course), ultraedit, weaverslave. You can go with gimp for windows if it comes to graphics ;)
You don't need them if you're using a site builded with a CMS like wordpress, drupal or whatever. Typochanges can easy be made within the system.
If you outsource the
If you outsource the majority of your coding, don't spend the money on DW and FW. If you need to make minor alterations at a later date, either outsource again or use the cheapest software you can to do the job. I like the free ones (can't get cheaper than that!)
If you had the choice
If you had the choice between Photoshop CS3 or fireworks CS3 what would you choose? I'm just curious because I have always used Photoshop CS3 to edit photos in the past and now I'm hearing a lot about fireworks(never heard of it before I started the BIP). So what product would you recommend. I do believe Fireworks is $299 and Photoshop is around $649 so I hope you recommend fireworks.
On my next days off I think I may download a trial version of Fireworks.
Thanks
Gordon
For web use exclusively,
For web use exclusively, Fireworks. Using Photoshop for the majority of web tasks is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut!
Having Dreamweaver and Fireworks
My two cents. If you have photoshop (in any version, CS3 or whatever) stick with it, if you don't have the resources for fireworks too. The slice function for fireworks makes life easy, but crop and paste, works fine for photoshop. Yes photoshop is clunky for some aspects of web design but it is really powerful. There are certainly many things that you can do in photoshop that are not available in fireworks - hence the price difference.
The bottom line if you don't have photoshop get fireworks, but if you already have (a full - not the scanner provided minimal version) photoshop probably stick with it. The learning curve for photoshop is steep and time consuming but the program can do a lot. I use photoshop in my day job and you would be amazed what I can do with it - but it certainly took me a while.
This book is really brilliant for using photoshop for web stuff - The Photoshop Anthology by Corrie Haffly (pub Sitepoint) subtitle: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques
Gimp
Maybe Gimp would be a good choice for you?
I'm not a power user of Photoshop so I find the Gimp more than enough for my requirements.
http://www.gimp.org/
Oh, and it's free.