# Macromedia Fireworks 8 - how to fade one picture / object into another



## smaulpaul (Jul 15, 2005)

Hi all, having recently upgrading to Fireworks 8 there is one thing that I always seem to have problems with and quite frankly it is doing my head in.

I want to take a photo, place it on my canvass and fade one of the sides away into the next picture. Just a simple fade. I have tried the black to white and white to black gradients but they just don't cut the mustard. 

Does anyone know how to do this?

thanks in advance


----------



## covert215 (Apr 22, 2006)

Put a solid color over the area that you the color changed. Mess with the blending options in the top right side of the properties (i.e. screen, multiply, tint) until you find one that accomplishes what you want.


----------



## smaulpaul (Jul 15, 2005)

That doesn't seem to do what I am wanting to accomplish. 

Let's say I have a bright picture. I also have a white "block" next to it which I want the to wimages to fade together. I want the bright picture to eventually fade into that white.

Also, I'd like to know how I can fade it to black.

Hope that explains it better


----------



## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

You need to use layers in order to do this. Create a new layer and fill it with white and drag that layer below your original. Click on your original image layer and clic the add layer mask button at the bottom of the layers toolbar.Fill the layer mask with a gradient that is linear if that is what you want and drag across the front of the image in the direction you want the fade to go. To do a black fade just make the original background layer black instead of white.

May not be exactly what you are looking to do, but you can do the same thing with other images in other layers as well.


----------



## covert215 (Apr 22, 2006)

OOOOOOOR...

make a gradient from white to black on the layer above your image...adjust the opacity accordingly


----------



## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

That would work as well I suppose. Or just a layer mask above the images in question. Layer masks automatically set the black part of the gradient as opaque and gradiates to the white.


----------



## smaulpaul (Jul 15, 2005)

This is really annoying me now. That guide rockn gave me seemed perfect and is exactly what I am trying to do. 

However, I just can't get to grips with getting a new layer which is independant of its own. Every time I get a new layer it becomes the same as the last one and if I change the bitmap colour in layer 1 (my original layer) it changes the colour of layer two and so on also! 

I have looked in the help files and gone through theirs step by step yet I still get this problem. I now can't seem to make a new layer which I can modify without modifying all the other layers.

All this money on a program and the help pages are useless. 

Here is a snippet:

Click the New/Duplicate Layer button with no layer selected. 
Select Edit > Insert > Layer. 
Select New Layer from the Layers panel Options menu, and click OK. 

There isn't even an option to select new layer!  :down:


----------



## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Does the new layer show up in the layers panel when you click the New/Duplicate layers button? If it does then you need to click on it to use it. If it looks like it is overpainting the entire original image it is because you need to drag the layer beneath the original so your original is on top and the one you added is beneath that one. Look at my layers palette images again.


----------



## face1 (Sep 17, 2005)

Do not quite understand all the layers issues you have mentioned. I use fireworks often...try this

open image you want as backgound or first image
use file>import to add other pictures

to fade between images, make selection using marquee or various other selection tools on the image you want to fade
then use select>feather and set the pixel size for the fade-out (the larger the feather size, the gentler the fade)
then use select>select inverse to select the area to be deleted
then delete, once or as many times as you want for further blending

mess around with original feather settings for sharper or more diffuse fades


----------

