Photoshop and Fireworks don't play well together

[eJM]

I spent several hours trying to perfect a design of a forum skin using Fireworks. I use that program because I know it a little better and that's not saying much. I bought the design and it only comes in PSD format. I paid good money for Fireworks and Photoshop CS3 because they were s'posed to be able to work with each other's files. Turns out that's not true at all. I can't edit very much at all of the PSD file in FW. Mostly, I can't change the colors, which is mostly what I want to do (and I haven't had much success replacing colors in PS either).

So, like I said, I spent hours (a pro coulda prob'ly done it in less than an hour) making all these new graphic elements from scratch. It really looked great:



Compared to the original file:



But when I open the finished work in Photoshop so I could save the slices to web (FW couldn't do that either), I notice all my beautiful work looks like blech:



It's like everything got flat. So, I figure I can manage to slice up the project in the same size slices as the original - more work, but I can do that - but when I open it back up in FW, it still looks terrible. And I can't edit any of the graphics I spent so much time making in FW. Why oh why I didn't save a copy in PNG format I don't know. Maybe I assumed the claim that I could edit in either program was true.

So, do I have to start all over again, or can this be salvaged somehow? Thanks for any help with this. If I could just edit the colors in Photoshop, I'd be satisfied. For some reason, I can't seem to get the replacement tool to change the color to the one I want - and I don't know why I couldn't just find where the original color was chosen and change it there (it's so much easier in FW - as long as it's a PNG file).

Thanks for any help,

Jim

[Henry]

how is the psd file organized? is there not just different layers for the different pieces?

[eJM]

Yes, there are many different layers. I can edit sizes in Fireworks, but I can't edit color, effects or much of anything else.

Jim

[Jeff]

right, you can't edit colors between the two, because photoshop can only have flat colors (not gradients) for its shapes, as far as i know. so when you import one to the other they would probably be rasterized.

though, i thought you could slice for web in fireworks. i know for a fact you can in Fw MX. did they really remove that from cs3, or did you just miss it?

[Tesseract]

Yes, there is a slice tool in fireworks, or at least in my copy. In the "Web" box in the toolbar.
On top of that, I suspect that the gradient is applied in photoshop by having a blank box with a gradient effect on top, which is the bit you want to edit. Check if the layer has an "fx" thing on it, like this:

[Dick]

i kind of like more the ruined one