Understanding Blend Paths Tool in Fireworks

October 23rd, 2008 in  Tutorials

Adobe Fireworks is surely the best Software for Rapid Web Development. Today we want teach you the basics of “Blend Paths Tool” integrated in Adobe Fireworks. With this tool you can create good Effects using only your Pencil Tool.

Learning how exaclty works Blend Paths tool is difficult and for this reason we want explain how it works using well documented examples.

First of all you have to open your Fireworks and create a new page for testing these examples. Now you have to open the Path Window: “Window -> Others -> Path”.

Now using your Pencil Tool, with border: “1-Pixel Soft”, you have to draw some lines as in the figure attached below.

How you can see in this picture (part 1), we have ordered lines. The order of lines is very important when you use Blend Paths. The first line that you draw (Line1), in the layer panel, will be under the next lines that you will draw.

As you can see in examples, you can blend from a line with 20% of opacity to a line with 100% of opacity. You can apply a gradient Blend using different colors for every line. In these examples we have used Blend Paths with 20 steps.

In picture 2 (Understanding Blend Paths Tool - part 2), you can see why is important the order of lines when you apply Blend Paths Tool.

In picture 3 (Understanding Blend Paths Tool - part 3), you can see how is important how you draw your lines. You can’t use the Blend Paths Tool to obtain random effect, you must know how it works and you must see in your mind what you want as finished work.

This is the difficult part that you must understand (Understanding Blend Paths Tool - part 4).

If you have understand by our pictures how Blend Paths Tool works, you can see our last example.