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Developer: Beatware

Minimum Requirements: Power Macintosh, Mac OS 8.5, 32 MB RAM, 20 MB available hard disk space, 800x600 256 color display, CD ROM

Retail Price: $199.99

Availability: Out Now

The thing about attending the Macworld Expos as a member of the press is that a month before the show I'm inundated with e-mails from companies of which I've never heard. This is not a negative reflection of these companies or their products, but simply that there is a ton of software out there (yes, even for the Mac), and I simply can't get to all of it. I usually accept these invitations for demos knowing that, more than likely, the software won't appeal to me so I'll just take my complimentary coffee mug and be on my way. But every now and again I'm shown a gem so impressive that I want to forget the Expo and just play with the new program for the rest of the day.

e-Picture Pro is such a gem.

e-Picture Pro is the successor to e-Picture, the web animation and video authoring program that won Best-of-Show honors at Macworld New York 1999. A lot has changed since then, but much has remained the same, too; e-Picture Pro again took Best-of-Show honors at Macworld New York 2000.

You don't have to play around with the software for very long before realizing why it has received so much praise. Its tools are at once familiar to users of Photoshop and Flash, somehow bridging the gap between the two. That's not to say users can hop right in and complete their first animation in a matter of moments, but rather that there's an immediate level of comfort one doesn't usually have with new software.

The interface isn't the only element compatible with other graphics programs, the file format is as well. With e-Picture Pro, users can now export their files to Flash, QuickTime and RealVideo formats. And when the W3C publishes the final format specifications for sclalable vector graphics (SVG), support will be made available to all registered users of e-Picture Pro at no extra cost. All of this is in addition to the standard animated GIF format that was previously supported. e-Picture Pro is equally impressive in the import arena, able to read native QuickTime, Illustrator and Photoshop files, layers and all. Again, these are in addition to more standard formats such as JPEG, PNG and TIFF. Oh, but it's not done yet. e-Picture Pro is also designed to integrate seamlessly with many visual web editors such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive and...for some reason...Microsoft FrontPage.

Of course all of this compatibility would be for naught if the program itself wasn't functional, but no worries there. Despite its modest price, e-Picture Pro can animate with the best of them. Perhaps its most distinguishing feature is its ability to work with 3D objects within the 2D world of internet graphics. Want to take a 3D QuickTime object and get it in an animated GIF? No problem. You can even take that 3D object and spin it along a non-linear, accelerated path.

e-Picture Pro also makes it easy to create image elements from scratch. The program is chock-full of templates to get you started and filters to keep you moving—most of which will be quite familiar to Photoshop users. And if you're a complete do-it-yourselfer, there's no shortage of tools to facilitate the creation of vectors, bitmaps, 3D images, 2D and 3D text, beziers, etc. Once you've created them, go ahead and shear, rotate, span and manipulate them much as you would in Illustrator or Flash.

Also like Flash, the main method of creating the animation is with a feature called tweening. This basically works by selecting the starting and ending point for an object then letting e-Picture Pro fill in the gaps. You can specify points along the way that the image must hit, because although the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, it's rarely the most interesting. Other attributes such as size, color and blur can also be altered along the way. And because even the best designers rarely get it right the first time, each element can be altered at all points during production without affecting the other elements.

The only real flaw with e-Picture Pro is that you can't get a feel for how the animation will look without using the program's export wizard. There is a play button within the program, but even on my 450MHz G4, the playback stuttered. Many websites place restrictions on animated banner ad length, so being able to time the animation throughout the project is key. However, e-Picture Pro nearly compensates for this with its file size feature. When exporting to a GIF file, for example, you can specify how large you want the file to be. Working with a 12K restriction? No problem. Just specify 12K and e-Picture Pro will make your file look as good as it can within that limit.

Many of the features listed above can also be found in Photoshop 5.5, Flash 4, and the like, so why should you replace these programs with e-Picture Pro? You shouldn't. e-Picture Pro was not designed to compete with these programs, but to supplement them. For web animations, it's much more robust than Photoshop and easier to use than Flash. I found it best for taking Photoshop objects, getting them ready for the web, then exporting them to Flash for inclusion in a bigger project.

And like Photoshop and Flash, there is much more to this product than can be covered in a review. A demo is available at Beatware's website, and a simple project or two is all it should take to learn if e-Picture Pro should be added to your web design arsenal. I found it to be that rare type of program that caused me to search for excuses to use it. After learning the software, I often heard myself saying, "Oh, hey, e-Picture will be perfect for that," whether the task was creating an ad banner, enhancing a Flash animation or fixing a bowl of split pea soup.

Well, rendering one, anyway.