In this lesson, you’ll develop an art section for an
ecotourism company. You will use another application to get started this
time, however: Adobe Bridge.
Adobe Bridge can save you a
lot of time by letting you view, sort, and open images you wish to use
in Fireworks. You can also add information to certain types of images,
such as JPEG files or Fireworks PNG files, using the Metadata panel in
Bridge. If you have purchased a Creative Suite edition, Adobe Bridge
installs with Fireworks, which is automatically linked to Bridge on
installation. You can also use Bridge to work with other Adobe
applications, such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
Note
If you purchased Fireworks as a standalone product, Adobe Bridge is not included.
1. | In Fireworks, choose File > Browse In Bridge.
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2. | When Bridge opens, select Filmstrip from the Workspace Switcher.
As in other Adobe applications, Bridge has a number of preset workspaces
that you can use, or you can create custom workspaces to use whatever
arrangement of panels you find most useful for your own workflow. For
the purpose of this lesson, the Filmstrip workspace best suits what
we’re about to do, because we can see thumbnails of the artwork and a
large preview of a selected image at the same time.
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3. | Click the Folders tab on the left side of the Bridge window.
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4. | Navigate to your folder in the Folders panel.
At the bottom of the Bridge window, in the Content pane, you will see a folder called fullsize and several PNG files.
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5. | Click once on the nature_tours.png file. An enlarged preview appears above the Content panel.
Typically,
PNG files are associated with Fireworks upon installing Bridge and
would therefore open automatically, but just to make sure, this time you
will “manually” open this file in Fireworks.
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6. | Choose File > Open With > Adobe Fireworks CS5.
Note
To resolve potential
issues with missing fonts, we converted the text in the file to paths.
This can be a useful technique if you have used nonstandard fonts and
need to pass the file on to someone else. The paths retain the shape and
attributes of the text, but they are no longer editable as text. As
paths, or vectors, they can still be scaled without losing any quality
in your work.
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Bridge returns you to Fireworks, where the PNG file is ready and waiting.
