Blonde Tutorials: A Little Extra Help for the Blonde in Everyone!

Fireworks is an program for creating and editing images. You can touch-up and crop photos or create a logo for your business. Fireworks products can be made to be printed, but it's real power is creating images suitable for the Internet.
This is what the Fireworks (Studio MX) layout looks like:

The View Tabs allow you to switch between Original (editing mode) and Preview (what it would look like on the Internet).
The file size and download time only appear on the Preview tab. This will give you an idea of how long it will take for your image to download from the Internet. {The ultimate goal is to have the best quality (large file size) with the fastest download time (under 10 seconds if possible).}
The Properties window shows the properties of the object or text that is selected.
The Export button allows you to save your image for use in a browser (usually as a .jpg or a .gif).
The Optimize window allows you to set the quality and the file type of the exported image.
The Tools window has all of the fun things to use to create or edit your image. Look at the image below:

The Fireworks Tools window has a number of useful tools to use in image editing. These are sticky tools -- meaning that when you click on a tool, you are "stuck" with that tool until you go get another one. You can tell what tool you have because your curser will turn into a shape that represents that tool.
Some tools have more than one option. If you see a little black arrow next to a tool, you can click and hold to see what the other options are.
When you choose a tool, its properties show up in the Properties window. This is where you can change the tool to fit your needs.
A few of the more commonly used tools are pointed out on the image at the left and described below:
• The Pointer is just your basic "click to select" tool. Whatever object you click on with this is selected (you'll get a blue box around it).
• The Crop tool lets you select an area to keep while the area outside is cut out.
• The Area Selection tools are the Marquee, the Lasso and the Magic Wand. The Marquee and the Lasso have shape options. The Marquee will select an shape area (rectangular, oval), the Lasso will let you draw a selection area, and the magic wand will automatically select an area depending on a range of color.
• The Brush, Pencil and Eraser are fairly self-explanatory (even for a blonde).
• The Effects options are fun and useful. The teardrop (shown) is the Blur tool -- very handy for blurring out parts of a pic that you don't want showing. The Sharpen tool will un-blur parts (to some extent). The Dodge tool lightens, the Burn tool darkens and the Smudge tool is just fun -- you've got to try this one!
• The Color Chooser lets you match a color that you already have without having to guess.
• The Paint Bucket (showing) fills in a selected area with a solid color. The Gradient tool (the other option) fills a selected area with a gradient of colors (you can set it up on the Properties window).
• With the Line tool you can make lines of different widths and textures. HINT: hold down the Shift key while you draw to get a perfectly horizontal or vertical line.
• The Shape tool lets you draw rectangles, ovals, and even polygons. HINT: to draw a perfect circle or square, hold down the Shift key while you are drawing.
• The Text tool lets you draw a box that you can type in.
• The Brush and Paint Colors boxes let you set the colors that your tools will use.

We'll talk about many of these things as we go through this simple tutorial. We are going to start with a common image-editing activity: getting a photo ready to be put on a web site.

Let's get creative!