Using an external image editor

You can open a selected image in an external image editor directly from Dreamweaver. When you return to Dreamweaver after saving the image file, any changes you made to the image are visible in the Document window.

To choose an external image editor:

1 Choose Edit > Preferences.
2 Select External Editors from the Category list on the left.
3 Click Browse next to the Images box and select your preferred image editor.
If you choose Macromedia Fireworks as the external image editor and launch it from within Dreamweaver, Fireworks automatically searches the folder that contains the selected file for a PNG file with the same name. For example, if you select an image whose source file is images/myPhoto.gif and images/ also contains a file called myPhoto.png, Fireworks opens the PNG file. As Fireworks' native file format, PNG files retain all the original layer, vector, color, and effects information, and all elements are fully editable at all times. Files must have the .png file extension to be recognized as PNG files by Dreamweaver.
If you choose any other image editing application as the external image editor and launch the editor from within Dreamweaver, the application opens the selected image (for example, images/myPhoto.gif). If you prefer, you can manually open the original file from which the GIF was generated (for example, myPhoto.psd might be the original Photoshop file), make any changes, and regenerate the GIF image. Dreamweaver still updates the image in the Document window when you return.

To launch the external image editor, do one of the following:

Hold down Control (Windows) or Command (Macintosh) and double-click the image you want to edit.
Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the image you want to edit and choose Edit Image from the shortcut menu.
Select the image you want to edit and click Edit Image in the Property inspector.