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Layers, masking, and blending

Layers divide an Adobe® Fireworks® document into discrete planes, as though the components of the illustration were drawn on separate tracing paper overlays. A document can be made up of many layers, each containing many sublayers or objects. Fireworks layers are similar to layer sets in Adobe Photoshop®. Photoshop layers are similar to individual Fireworks objects.

Masking allows you to block out part of the underlying image. For example, you can paste an elliptical shape as a mask on top of a photograph. All areas outside the ellipse disappear as if cropped, showing only the part of the picture inside the ellipse.

Blending techniques give you another level of creative control. You can create unique effects by blending the colors in overlapping objects. Fireworks has several blending modes to help you achieve the look you want.