Fireworks bitmap objects

Before we begin our exploration of the editing capabilities that Fireworks offers for digital images, let us have a look at the terminology that we will use during this tutorial. We will follow the terms as they are used in the Macromedia Fireworks Manual so you will be familiar with them as you might read a little more at a later time.

Fireworks' strength is to combine vector objects with bitmaps i.e., we can handle both scalable objects and pixelated objects within the same application. For Vector objects all size and outline are described mathematically. Vector objects are assigned properties which are rendered before the object is displayed. Since the rendering of the objects is on the fly we can scale them without losing any quality of display. The only restriction about resolution is the ppi resolution of the canvas.

Bitmap objects are like mosaics. They consist of a finite number of squares which have color values assigned to them. The resolution depends upon the way a bitmap was created. For color images that will display on a screen a resolution of 72 ppi to 92 ppi seems sufficient, since monitors don't show more pixels than that. Any finer resolution would only inflate the file size without bringing any visible quality increase.

Bitmap tools in Fireworks are used to edit existing bitmap images, especially digital photos and scans. The first part of this tutorial will deal with the basic manipulation techniques namely sizing and cropping. Before we start in on that let's talk about a few terms, just as a reminder.