The newest version of MetaCreations Painter is billed as a "web version" of this fine program, and that's appropriate. MetaCreations has added all sorts of things to Painter to make it an amazing web tool and that is what we will talk about here. However, you should look at our review of Painter 5.0 as well, since it addresses the program in toto, the concept of natural drawing for which Painter is famous and the depth of features which has made this program one of the finest in the graphics/design area.
   Here, we will address the new features in version 5.5 since they were added to the basic program to produce a "web edition" of Painter. The thing you should not lose track of, however, is that all of the many, many things which make this program what it is are still very much a part of Painter 5.5. You aren't giving up anything with the "web edition" – you're just adding capabilities.

   Among those capabilities are the different functions found in this flaoting pallete. Among the better additions are the image slicer, the bevel world and the ability to do almost anything with buttons.
   It is this latter, in fact, which brings the awesome power of Painter to the web. Every bit of the graphics capability that Painter has in its treasure-trove of tricks can be put to use in creating buttons of any size, kind, description and color. Indeed, the sky is the limit when it comes to doing fantastic things with Painter and its button generation capabilities – including setting up button states.
   Button states are making the button look different if it is just sitting there, if the cursor rolls over the bitton or of you click on the button. You'll see more and more of this thing on web pages you visit: now you can do it, too!
   To illustrate that, let's look at this nice button which was created (literally) with a flick of the mouse in Painter's Bevel World (more on that in a bit). If this is what a button on your page is to look like when it is just sitting there, you can easily change its appearance tp something like this when there is a mouse rollover.  Now that is pretty nifty. That it took about 10 seconds to do this whole thing merely illustrates the power that MetaCreations has put into this web version of Painter. Of course, you can use these tools for non-web graphics as well. Simply teriffic.
   Because Painter is so feature-rich to begin with, version 5.5's ability to make image maps is a real strong suit for this program. Of course, it also animates graphics, produces transparent GIF files and makes all sorts of backgrounds. Painter 5.5 will jazz up your web pages in no time.
   Another new feature totally worthy of mention is Painter's ability to work with dynamic text. Unlike Painter 5.0, version 5.5 treats text as a single object. This means you can do all sorts of manipulating with your text as a whole – not on a letter-by-letter basis as in the previous version. You can rotate, slant, change leading and character spacing, add special effects and even change the opacity of text. This feature alone makes Painter 5.5 worth the cost of the upgrade.
   We just love bevel world. If you will merely look at the the sheer number of options this little gem gives you for creating bevels, you'll be blown away. It is difficult to imagine any other parameter which could be adjusted in a bevel! And you will notice the "Save as Default" button means once you have a general look you want to apply to the objects you bevel on your site, you can apply the same bevels to all of them without having to go through all sorts of things just to remember what you did or how you set it up.
   Lastly, we would like to talk about the image slicing capabilities in Painter 5.5. Image slicing is, of course, the ability to "cut up" a graphic into several images and load them separately. Once all of them load, you have a larger image that, for all purposes, looks like one element rather than a series of pictures. The main reasoin for doing this, of course, is to speed downloads.
   There are a lot of image slicing utilities on the market, but we have not run across one which has the sheer flexibility found in Painter 5.5. What makes this important is that, in addition to merely using image slicing to load in pictures in parts, you can also use it in connection with rollovers to change the look of a part of the sliced image when the mouse passes over it.
   This is a very nifty and cool technique, that will make your web pages instantly look more progfessional. But it requires absolute control of the sliced images in order to look good. Painter 5.5 gives you that expellent control.
   MetaCreations has done an outstanding job of pringing web capabilities to one of the premier graphics programs anywhere. Combining the natural drawing capabilities which has always been the hallmark of Painter with these excellent web tools makes Painter 5.5 a must buy or upgrade.

   Link to the Painter web site.