Posted by dorayme on 04/02/07 06:19

In article <eupml8$akh$1@online.de>,
"Greg N." <yodel_dodel@yahoo.com> wrote:

> dorayme wrote:
>
> >> dorayme wrote:
> >>> ... exporting smallish files (PS is
> >>> hopeless on this,
> >> xcuse me, what exactly do you think is the problem here?
> >
> > I have given you my experience and will go into it only if I see
> > some more from you on this subject. What is it exactly (and I
> > mean exactly) that you want me to talk about?
>
> The sentence I quoted seems to say that PS is not good at creating small
> image (JPG?) files. I had the same problem when I started to use PS CS2,
> until I found there is a "save for web" function, which, as far as I can
> tell, can create very compact JPGs.
>
> Furthermore, you can use masks to optimize the range of quality in a
> JPEG image. Selected parts of the pic may be rendered in a high quality
> mode while the rest of the pic is in very low quality mode. This can
> give the image an overall appearance of high quality despite very small
> JPG size.
>
> I guess you know all this, no? I'm not an expert, but I'm very much
> interested in this field. What is it that Fireworks can do so much
> better here?

Yes, fair enough, and the mild challenges or calls for more
explanations caused me to take a better look at the more modern
PS and IR and it seems one can do quite well. I went the FF way
for many webby graphic tasks from the days of FF 2! Did I get set
in my ways? In that time, or just when IR came out, I was not too
impressed in the compression algorithms being used by IR and PS
cf to my (by then old) FF2.

One would have to investigate the issue closely with latest
programs. But FF has all these other advantages, or at least did:
much better text (prior to CS, text in PS was quite awkward and
clunky). Moving stuff around in PS was dependent on the layer
concerned being active. FF is quite brilliant in the way it
allows one to simply manage parts of the image all on one layer
or many, the objects (bits of text, shapes eg). Anyone used to
Illustrator will know the strengths of this classy vector
program. FF has some of the same elements to it.

But this said, if I am working on just a photograph to retouch it
or manipulate it in various ways, I use PS, the tools are better
and more intuitive. Once it is right, or if it has to be part of
a more complicated graphic, it is over to FF for me.

--
dorayme

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