Dear Janine,

I’m a graphic designer here in Southern California and have been designing and (attempting) to create and publish websites for years. I absolutely couldn’t wait to dive into the Flash and DreamWeaver lessons. I spent the past weekend finishing up your DVDs and felt like I owed you a big thank you for what I learned in such a short time.

I have a question: I’ve worked on Photoshop since the early ’90s, and I’m very comfortable in that application. Is there anything that Fireworks offers that I can’t get from Photoshop? Also, in your opinion, is ColdFusion worth looking into?

Thank you for your time.
Chris

Hi, Chris,

Although Photoshop has many great Web-image optimization features built into it, Fireworks has a few added advantages in the slicing and exporting feature set. In general Photoshop is the more complex and advanced image editor overall, and Fireworks has a few features that make it slightly better for Web design.

That said, most designers seem quite happy with Photoshop, although I know a few professional Web designers who swear by Fireworks because they say it going back and forth between a design created in Fireworks and the page layouts in Dreamweaver is so easy. Fireworks seems especially popular among people who are working on many sites and appreciate the streamlined workflow you can get from using Fireworks and Dreamweaver together.

ColdFusion takes you to another level. If you’re relatively new to Web design, moving on to the kind of dynamic, database-driven sites you can create with ColdFusion can be a big step. In general, unless you have a really big site (100+ pages and growing) or you need many interactive features you want to be able to customize, you probably don’t need to take this step. But if you do want to create a dynamic site, ColdFusion is easier to use than some of the other options, such as PHP, JSP, or ASP.Net.

Hope that helps,
Janine

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