For Immediate Release

For more information, contact:

Macromedia Schwartz Communications
Andrea Coffey Lauren Carpenter
acoffey@macromedia.com laurenc@schwartz-pr.com
(415) 252-2260 (415) 512-0770

MACROMEDIA SHIPS FIREWORKS
First Tool to provide a Unified Environment for Creating and Producing Web
Graphics is Now Available for Windows and Macintosh

San Francisco, Calif June 2, 1998Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR) today
announced that Fireworks, the first tool to provide a unified environment
for creating, optimizing and producing high-quality bitmapped graphics for
the Web, is now shipping for an estimated street price of $299. By
combining a powerful text and graphics creation environment with
sophisticated functionality for optimizing download times and adding
interactivity and animation, Fireworks defines a new category of software
tools geared to the graphics production needs of Web designers. The
shipping version of Fireworks introduces significant new features not
included in the pre-release version, in response to feedback from many of
the over 60,000 Web designers who downloaded the free public beta.

"We evaluate lots of new software in the Web Development group here at Rare
Medium and every once in a while we come across a new tool that is so
useful and timesaving we cannot imagine how we ever got on without it,"
said Robert Stratton, a partner at Rare Medium, a sixty-person digital
communications firm in New York City. "Macromedia Fireworks is such a tool.
Although Fireworks was still in beta we have already used it with great
success on a number of high-profile projects. Like Dreamweaver, Fireworks
takes much of the tedium and complexity out of building cutting-edge web
sites, allowing our designers and developers to focus on the creative
execution." Rare Medium has created innovative Web sites for clients
including General Mills, Mattel, Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and
Sony, and can be found on the Web at (http://www.raremedium.com).

New in the Shipping Version

In addition to Web-savvy Fireworks features found in the public beta
version such as a visual export preview, best of breed image compression,
and always-editable text and effects, the shipping version of Fireworks
provides significant enhancements to help designers create the most compact
graphics and GIF animations in the fewest steps. New features include:

* Symbols, Instances, and Tweening for more compelling animations: Symbols
and instances enable fast edits across multiple frames of an animation-the
user just modifies the master object, and all its instances update
automatically. With the new Tween feature, artists can easily create
effects such as fades and zooms, and even animate parameters of Fireworks'
unique Live Effects.

* Image Slicing for faster downloads: Fireworks' image slicing feature has
been extended to give designers even greater control. Users can now export
images using a mix of compression types, for example JPEG for photographic
areas of the image and GIF for parts with text and flat areas of color.
Designers can use separate adaptive palettes for different areas of a
graphic and designate any region as a button rollover.

* WebSnap adaptive palette for small, high-fidelity images: This new
palette option combines the strengths of adaptive and "browser-safe"
compression formats, producing images that display cleanly on both 8 bit
and true color displays, yet download fast.

* Color correction and effects filters for image retouching: Fireworks now
features a collection of filters to accomplish useful imaging operations
including adjustment of levels, addition of noise, and conversion to
monochrome.

* Tighter integration with Macromedia Dreamweaver 1.2 for streamlined site
design: Fireworks is engineered to work smoothly with Dreamweaver,
Macromedia's popular visual Web authoring tool. Developers can now use
Fireworks as an image editor and have changes automatically reflected in
Dreamweaver pages.

In addition to the new features listed above, Fireworks offers a host of
asked-for improvements including the ability to create alpha masks, support
for numeric transformations, context sensitive menus, performance
enhancements, and more.

About Fireworks

Fireworks was created from the ground up to provide a unified environment
for producing Web graphics and to serve as an alternative to the current,
multi-product workflow. Fireworks offers Internet-aware innovations such as
a visual export preview window with dynamically updated display of file
size and download time, and the ability to easily create image maps. A
slicing feature allows users to break up images for faster downloads, and a
button generation feature dramatically simplifies creation of interactive
Web pages by generating up, down, over, and hit states for buttons, plus
JavaScript code. Other Fireworks functions provide extensive control over
compression and playback of GIF animations.

Unlike other products targeting the Web-graphics category, Fireworks
supplements its production strengths with a powerful painting and
image-editing environment in which users can easily edit vector objects,
bitmap images and text. For veteran Web designers, being able to take a
graphic from conception to output in a single tool speeds workflow. For
people just starting out, having all the functionality they need in one
application saves money.

Recognizing that digital artists have different needs than their
print-oriented counterparts, Fireworks offers the tools necessary to create
the types of images common on the Web. Since most Web graphics consist of
text, logos, and navigational elements -each composed of type, line art,
and bitmaps- Fireworks features precise text controls, a rich set of vector
tools, and a robust bitmap editing environment. All objects and effects in
Fireworks are editable all the time, enabling designers to experiment
freely and rapidly implement changes requested by clients. A completely
open solution, Fireworks imports and optimizes images from standard
graphics applications such as Photoshop, FreeHand, Illustrator and
CorelDraw.

Pricing and Availability
Fireworks for Windows 95, Windows NT and Macintosh PowerPC is available now
for an estimated street price of US $299. It will be available for purchase
online through Macromedia at www.macromall.com, directly from Macromedia at
(800) 457-1774, and through traditional software distribution channels. A
free, thirty-day trial version can be downloaded from www.getfireworks.com.
Interested parties outside North America should contact their local
Macromedia distributor for pricing and availability. For the name of a
Macromedia authorized reseller in your area, call (800) 326-2128 or visit
www.macromedia.com.

About Macromedia
Headquartered in San Francisco, Macromedia (NASDAQ: MACR) is a leading
provider of software products, each designed to help make creativity and
interactivity more possible in the new technology ecosystem. Macromedia's
award-winning products for Windows, Macintosh and the Internet are
available to business, education, and government customers worldwide.
Additional information on Macromedia is available on the Internet at
www.macromedia.com.