Learn To Morph

Michael Nadeau

MORPHOLOGY 101 FOR WINDOWS, Andover Advanced Technologies, 239 Littleton Rd., Suite 2A, Westford, MA 01886, (508) 392-1362, $39.95

Few CD-ROMs classify as bargains, but at $40, Morphology 101 for Windows is an exception. This is a good starter kit for anyone with the itch to morph, which is the fluid transformation of one static image into another. Morphology 101 provides both a tutorial to get you started and North Coast Software's PhotoMorph Lite program, a stripped-down version of its popular PhotoMorph. You also get 75 morphing samples and several hundred static images, all royalty-free. But wait, there's more! You can use the bundled Matinee program from Access Softek to turn the morphs you create into custom screen savers. All that's missing are the Ginsu knives.

The CD is complete, but it's not perfect. The user interface is minimalist, with no direct link from one component to another. To run PhotoMorph Lite while reading the tutorial, for example, you must load each of them separately and toggle back and forth via Windows.

Although the ``How the Pros Morph'' tutorial is interactive as advertised, its implementation is crude by today's multimedia standards. It is simply a Windows Write file with live embedded morphing examples. There are no hypertext links from, say, the table of contents to the corresponding section of text.

The content, however, is good. The text has the voice of experience, and the organization is done logically. The morphing examples are well chosen, too. Andover Advanced Technologies should pay greater attention to the quality of the writing in the next release, however. In some cases, the wording was awkward enough to obscure the meaning.

PhotoMorph Lite provides only the bare minimum of morphing features. In fact, you will get more out of the t utorial if you have the full-blown version of the program. Nonetheless, Morphology 101 will get you morphing in fairly short order. It is a good value and a lot of fun as well.