That Rounded Rectangle Looks Like Crap!
Here’s a quick tip for those of you out there using FireWorks to do your designs.
All over the web you can find beautifully drawn round rectangles, some are elaborate while others are fine with a one pixel width. In my designing I wanted some of these beautiful design elements integrated into my sites, but I was baffled as to how to make those corners look right. Every round corner I drew had jagged and pixelated corners. I was completely clueless as to what was going on.
Basic - Hard line
I was concerned I might have to tackle one of the hardcore design programs like Illustrator just to get a nice looking rectangle with smooth round corners. Then I figured out that you have to switch the Stoke Options. Now that I know this, it’s really quite obvious. 20/20 hindsight is always grand.
Basic - Soft Line
Changing the stroke option to Soft Line under the Basic category is a major improvement, but I ended up choosing the Pencil 1-Pixel Soft option for my one pixel rounded rectangles, as I think it is a little smoother.
Pencil 1 Pixel Soft
UPDATE: Synjari offered a great tip in the comments section! Using the parameters she suggested for the Photoshop LiveEffects in Fireworks CS3 I was able to create an even nicer looking rounded rectangle:
Photoshop Live Effects in Fireworks CS3
hajbaji on 
Susan Hale Whitmore on 
Barry Fence on 
If you have CS3 or later version of Fireworks, you can get an even finer and smoother rounded stroke by using the shape in combination with the Photoshop effects option. For this, you do need either a fill or a stroke on the shape in order to use effects.. I noticed in CS3 that if I had neither, no effects would show up. So what I did was set the fireworks stroke to transparent, go to the filters area of the Properties panel and choose: Photoshop Live Effects.
Once I am there I choose Stroke with the options of 1px, choose my color, and set its position to “inside”. It makes the stroke very fine and at absolute minimum of 1px wide on the sides of my rounded rectangles as well as many other shapes I have dealt with. Hope that helps!
Thanks for the tip Synjari! I’ve tried it out and it totally looks smoother! I’ll about this post with an example in a moment.
I’ve hated those FW rounded corners forever! Just what I was looking for.
Thanks Marilyn!