Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Bringing Your Vision to Life

In This Chapter

• Exporting graphics with Fireworks 8

• Understanding graphics files

• Getting to know that Fireworks interface

• Discovering some alternatives: Photoshop, ImageReady, and Corel Painter

You've got a client who needs a Web site. The client has a vision, which might or might not be possible. After you become the voice of reason, you have a workable vision that you can translate into an effective Web site. Now, all you've got to do is start fleshing out the design. But before you can assemble the HTML pages, you've got to take your grand vision and translate it into useable graphics that you can implement in your Web design. In this chapter, we show you the tools you can use to go from concept to completion.

Introducing Fireworks 8

You can use lots of applications to create the graphic elements of your Web design. However, if the elements are exported only as image files, you're going to have to assemble them yourself in your handy‐dandy HTML editing application. And that means working with tables and images and spacers, oh my! In other words, the task won't be a whole lot of fun. But some applications can export your graphic design as images and HTML, and you don't have to write the first bit of code. Bingo. That's just the ticket. This section introduces you to Adobe Fireworks, an application you can use to export a graphic design as images and HTML.

Vector and raster images

Fireworks has been around for a long time, but not quite as long as ...