Adobe Fireworks is always pitted against Photoshop and now there are many more software applications to compare. It was a battle not too long ago and now it is a full-blown war. Regardless of your personal preference, you would have to pick one that is clearly superior or if it is more suited for a specific job. Here are the Adobe Fireworks pros and cons for you to make an informed choice.
List of Pros of Adobe Fireworks
1. Ideal for UI Design
Adobe Fireworks is specifically designed to meet the demands of UI. Whether you are working on prototyping or interaction design, you would observe that the native 72 dpi feature of Adobe Fireworks is more suited than Photoshop, which sets it at 300 dpi.
2. Multipage Designs
Adobe Fireworks allows you to have multiple states or pages and not simple layers. Such a feature makes it more suited for multistate or multipage designs and presenters can simply walk through the demo without turning off or turning on the various layers.
3. Ease of Designing
Adobe Fireworks has a stocked library, master pages and shared layers which make it rather convenient to design. You can also maintain uniformity without breaking a sweat.
4. Interactive Prototyping
Adobe Fireworks has an integrated feature that allows you to convert your designs to interactive prototypes.
5. Image Optimization
Adobe Fireworks does a spectacular job at compressing images, that too without any significant loss in the quality of the image. Those who have used both Adobe Fireworks and Photoshop know that the compressed images with the latter would be as much as twice as large with the same quality.
List of Cons of Adobe Fireworks
1. Poor Quality Printouts
Adobe Fireworks has an inherent problem when you print a design. Owing to the low dpi, the printouts are slightly or substantially bitmapped. You should change it to get better printouts but there are more convenient solutions in this regard.
2. Complicated Start
Adobe Fireworks has menus, shortcuts and layouts that are very different from Illustrator, Photoshop and other such applications. You will need to spend some time with the UI software to get accustomed with it.
3. Problem with Gradient
Adobe Fireworks is not ideal for gradients because they tend to get banded. Most people who use Fireworks tend to switch to Photoshop for gradient.
4. Intermittent Troubles
Adobe Fireworks is not perfect and it is not complete free of bugs, despite more than twenty thousand bugs being fixed since its inception. Expect some trouble from time to time.