Originally Posted by The Rover Sorry, but the majority of any negative spin on fireworks just isn't accurate. Particularly for the more recent versions. Also just to clarify, a PNG file has been proven to be far superior in terms of quality. As far usability and options, fireworks is my personal preference for graphic work, just like hundreds of thousands of others. Again, thanks for posting your personal taste of choice when it comes to what you personally design with, however I don't think that's the basis of this thread, right? Nonetheless, thank you for your kind words about this design.

Since this thread has been split, I'll go ahead and complete what I had tried to shorten up into a small passage earlier.

Firstly, I never said there was anything wrong with layered PNG's. I simply stated that I'm not a fan of Fireworks.

Although Fireworks is aimed towards web development whereas Photoshop is meant to be used to manipulate photos, Photoshop still has more users, more plugins, and more features than Fireworks. This is the reason why I, and many others, still use and prefer Photoshop over Fireworks.

As far as slicing and coding a layered PNG vs a PSD is concerned, there isn't much of a different. You can do an equally effecient job using either Photoshop or Fireworks. If you're new to Fireworks, you may have to get used to a few different dialogs while slicing and exporting the images but nothing that's too complicated to figure out on your own.

Nonetheless, the sky is the limit with both applications. I've see some people make amazing art with Microsoft Paint. That just goes to proove that it's the designer's imagination that places a limit on the possibilities, not the software application or pen/pencil and paper. Special tools only make the creativity flow faster, assuming one knows how to use them.

I agree that Fireworks has an increasingly growing userbase in the web development industry but until the number and quality of amazing Fireworks tutorials can match those of amazing Photoshop tutorials, I don't see Fireworks being the #1 designers tool for web development. Photoshop is simply too advanced and has been around for too long for users to just switch.