As I sometimes am too quick to do, I’ve been stewing for a while now, since the Adobe Elearning Developer Suite was released, about why they included Photoshop instead of Fireworks. I totally understand why they might do this – more Photoshop users than Fireworks.
So last week I went out and bought a tutorial book on Photoshop (I prefer books for comprehensive learning of an app instead of trying to find piecemeal tutorials online). I started learning Photoshop and it is just so horrible to use compared to Fireworks, which is very elegant in terms of its UI. The only reason I wanted to learn Photoshop was to import the layered .psd files into Captivate 4, which keeps the layers separated on import.
Well, it hit me last night, that I had forgotten completely that Fireworks can export to .psd!
I did a quick test by creating a multiple layer 800×600 file in Fireworks and did a Save As… to .psd, then imported into Captivate 4. Worked beautifully as expected/hoped.
I’m part thrilled, part angry at myself that I wasted $19 (thank goodness I waited to get one of those 50% off Borders spam coupons) on a book for an app I’ll probably never learn : (
This solves my biggest issue with Captivate – the transparent text is fuzzy/blurry – so bad it drives me nuts. From now on I’m going to do it in Fireworks whenever possible. It’s faster too.
Does this make sense? What negatives am I not seeing in regards to this workflow?
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Forgot to mention the biggest negative – next year, when my company has to purchase the Elearning Developer Suite, I’ll also have to beg for some extra money to purchase a single license of Fireworks. Adobe really should offer a choice.
Marks last blog post..Using the Adobe Elearning Suite Workflow – Can Substitue Fireworks for Photoshop
I truly wish that Adobe would let you create your own Suite. I have Photoshop and Flash CS3, and really wasn’t looking forward to upgrading, although CS4 offers some cool features in both. However, my version of Fireworks hasn’t been upgraded since MX and Illustrator since CS2. I would have loved to upgrade to the newer version of Fireworks and Illustrator.
One huge negative that I wasn’t aware of when I posted…
I created some images in Fireworks CS4, saved as .ps file, then imported into CP4 and the gradients were removed. So then I opened the .ps file in Photoshop CS4 to see if saving it out of there as a .ps file would work with CP4, but my gradients were gone. Seems the gradients (and I have a hunch other things) are not being recognized by Photoshop or Captivate 4. Sucks…
Marks last blog post..Using the Adobe Elearning Suite Workflow – Can Substitue Fireworks for Photoshop
Don’t know what the “rules” are, but I had the CS3 Web Developer Suite and upgraded to the CS4 e-learning suite but kept fireworks, illustrator and contribute installed. Yeah, it’s a version back but hey, I’d rather have CS3 then have to pay for a single license of those 3 apps.
Maby an other option then to purchase Fireworks…
Use Paint.NET (http://www.getpaint.net/) and the photoshop extension (http://frankblumenberg.de/doku/doku.php?id=paintnet:psdplugin) that allow you to use and save in Pain.NET some psd files. I must try the solution…
But I agree… Adobe could give the choice…