Getting Started with Fireworks: Intro to Using the Slicing Tool

Many of us have used the slicing tool in Photoshop at one point or another, so it’s easy to dismiss the slicing tool in Fireworks as the same tool. In this video, we’re going to take a good hard look at what makes the Fireworks version of this tool so useful to web designers looking to shave off time and filesize from their web design chop jobs!

Intro to Using the Slicing Tool in Fireworks

We’ve already gone over how using the Batch Processing Tool in Fireworks can result is massively reduced file sizes… so it shouldn’t be any surprise that using the slicing tool in Fireworks will result in smaller file sizes for web graphics than exporting your images from Photoshop.

In this video tutorial, Connor Turnbull will show us around the basics for using the Slicing tool in Adobe Fireworks. This is part of a series of tutorials that look at the unique features in Fireworks that make it such a great tool for web designers. Be sure not to miss the key points:

• Smaller file sizes using Fireworks Export
• Better control over individual slices
• Quicker “save for web” workflow for slicing compared with Photoshop
• The ability to save slices as HTML snippets
• The ability to create in-file links for rapid prototypes

Some additional links and resources:

• Image Types and Usage in Web Design
• Batch Processing in Fireworks
• Fireworks Pro Series: From Photoshop to Fireworks to the Web

About the Author

Connor Turnbull is a web designer based in the UK with a special interest in attempting to create websites around a specific need. He has a special interest in designing usable websites that user can really interact with. And, he’s also part of a new, three-person collaboration on the Envato Marketplaces.

Connor will be walking us through more of these Fireworks videos in the future, so if you have any other specific requests, questions, or ideas, post them down below!