Opening Bitmap Images

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The bitmap images you use will probably come from your scanner, digital camera, or other applications. If you already have images that you want to open, you can open them directly using the File ® Open command or you can import them into an open document by choosing File ® Import. When you import an image, you'll see an icon that looks like a corner. You can simply click your canvas to place the image or you can click and drag to conform the imported image to a specific size.

You can scan directly into Fireworks or open images from a digital camera directly in Fireworks by following these steps:

1. Connect the digital camera or scanner to your computer.

2. Install the software drivers that come with your camera and/or scanner.

   Note 

   The scanner and camera need to be twain compliant for Windows or support Photoshop Acquire plug-ins for Macintosh. Fireworks looks for the Photoshop Acquire plug-in in the Fireworks plug-ins folder for the Macintosh. You do not need to own Photoshop to use the Photoshop Acquire plug-in.

3. The first time you use the camera or the scanner you'll need to choose File ® Scan ® Twain Select and choose your scanner.

4. Now choose File ® Scan ® Twain Acquire to open your scanner application.

A Bit About Bitmaps

Just in case you are coming from a "vector-only" world, here is a quick course in pixel-based images. Photographs are comprised of pixels, the smallest component part of a bitmapped image, also known as a raster image or, in Fireworks, an image object. Pixels are little squares of color resembling a mosaic composition. Editing pixels involves adding, removing, or coloring individual pixels.

The pixels are what distinguish a bitmapped image from a vector image, which consists of paths, a line with at least two points. Because vector objects (called objects in Fireworks) are made up of a series of lines they are fully scalable.

Pixel images loose detail as they are scaled up because each image contains a set number of pixels. When you scale a bitmapped image up, Fireworks has to guess which pixels need to be resampled to "fake" the detail in the increased space. This stretching of pixels results in what is known as a "pixilated image." You can identify pixilated images by the obvious squares that can be seen or by the blurring of detail. The bigger the image is stretched the worse it will look. On the other hand if you have a bitmapped image larger than needed, you can scale it down, resulting in the same amount of pixels in a lesser area, producing a sharper image with more detail.

To create your own bitmap image, you can select and draw with the Brush tool or the Pencil tool in the Bitmap section of the Tools panel. You can add bitmap drawings to a vector object if you want to. The change of bitmap to vector mode is seamless, and Fireworks handles it behind the scenes so you don't have to switch modes.

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