Creating Black and White Graphics in Macromedia Fireworks
Macromedia Fireworks is a powerful program that can be used to alter many kinds of graphic images. A thirty-day trial of Macromedia Fireworks can be obtained
at Download.com
To create a black and white graphic in Macromedia Fireworks
MX 2004, open the file. To make sure all the appropriate panels are showing,
click on the Window menu (next to the help Menu) and select “Tools”, “Properties”
and “Optimize”. Once a panel has been selected, it will create a checkmark
to the left of this item. For use on www.rubberstamps.net
we are currently able to accept .bmp, .gif, and .jpg; for the purpose
of this example, we will create a .gif file.
We will set the optimize settings as follows:
At this point, the graphic will not physically appear different
(yet). After these settings have been changed, choose File > Export and choose and new file name for your .gif file and save.
If you attempt to simply save the file (rather than exporting it), it will attempt
to make a Fireworks .png file, and this file type not nearly as pervasive as .gif.
Navigate to your new file and open it; you will see that it is a monochrome file!
We can see the full affection for the scarecrow in this version.
Now we can upload this monochrome file, add some text at the bottom, and
make a custom stamp for a birthday present.
The picture below is a preview of a stamp created by personalizing
a Trodat 4926 stamp on www.rubberstamps.net.
It’s the perfect combination of embarrassing, cute and creepy.
This begs the question, why the massive difference between
Paint’s capabilities and Fireworks’ capabilities? Why does Paint give us
an end product without all the nuances of Macromedia Fireworks?
The secret is in the “dither” setting shown above. Note that the dither percentage is set to 100%. In Fireworks, increasing
the dithering tells the program to approximate the colors by mixing or alternating pixels. In other words, the greater the percentage of dither, the
greater amount of surrounding pixels Fireworks takes into account when determining if
a particular pixel will be set to black or white. If we had set the dither
percentage to 0%, we would have received a graphic identical to the one in Paint.
Paint does not have the capability to dither; it merely looks at each individual
pixel and approximates the color; it does not have the capability to consider surrounding
pixels when approximating color.
Other helpful hints for converting to a monochrome format:
- Use a graphic or photo where the background is a different color than the main objects.
- Make sure a shadow and/or a flash has not unnaturally altering the colors or brightness in the photo.
- Do not use a blurry or out of focus image.
- Crop/cut out only the part of the image you want to submit. To do this in Fireworks, click on your picture so
that it is selected (there will be a blue border around it when it is selected), and go to the menu Edit > Crop Selected Bitmap.
This will create a black, dashed line around your image. Adjust the crop handles until all that remains is
the part of the image you would like to keep. Double-click inside the
image you want to keep and the rest will be removed.
To fit the canvas to your newly-cropped item, go to the menu Modify > Canvas > Fit Canvas, and the canvas
will fit to the cropped item. To save this newly-cropped and fitted graphic, go
to File > Export and export the file again. (Reminder: Use “export” and not “save”
or Fireworks will attempt to save a .png file.)
Whether you use Microsoft’s Paint or Macromedia Fireworks,
there are a large number of graphics programs available. Find one you are comfortable
with and explore away! The alteration possibilities in these software packages
are truly mind-blowing. If you want further evidence, look at the perfect
images of models and movie stars on magazine covers. Case closed!
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