Ever since I started messing around with the office xerox machine and making weird little collages with the old-school X-acto and wax manual method, I yearned for an easier way. A few years ago I stumbled across the Windows-only program Fauve Matisse, which, in addition to your basic paint program functionality, offered the ability to copy and paste pieces of graphics as "objects" rather than automatically merging them into the overall "canvas" as soon as you unclicked your mouse. Not only could you keep objects distinct to move them around later (just like in a real life collage), but you could crop away anything you didn't want to show and let the background of the "canvas" show through (just like in real life). Add a flatbed scanner to the mix and you have my dream come true.

Last year big ole Macromedia (known for their multimedia authoring program, Director) bought Fauve Software. They still haven't upgraded Matisse (so be wary if you see a copy of Macromedia Matisse in your grocer's freezer), but they also bought Fauve's new tech: xRes, touted to be like Matisse only much better. Well, it is. Recently, I used it to create the front cover for an issue of Albuquerque's alternative-style newsweekly (der Weekly Alibi), and I was highly impressed with the lack of pain I encountered.

XRes was created with Photoshop users in mind (the Macromedia press release says as much), complete with a hauntingly familiar set of tools and terminology to ease the learning curve. Unlike Matisse, tool settings are easy to manipulate--either by slider levers or by keying in the values you desire. Another excellent feature (seen in Photoshop as well) is interruptible screen redraw, which means if you're working on one tiny corner of the screen, xRes will cease repainting the screen after you scroll around--until you, the almighty user, are idle. This alone saves a huge amount of time.

The biggest bell/whistle combination, however, is xRes's capability to allow even a modest computer to handle gigantic files by running in a special "xRes mode" that doesn't actually apply your changes to the file until after you're all done and ready to go to bed. It only "renders" what it needs to show you on the screen while you're working on the file, and then runs (for hours if need be) after the fact to actually accomplish all the changes. This is clever programming and a refreshing change from the "throw hardware at the problem" solution that is par for the course. As soon as I started using "xRes mode" on the cover file (a not-so-huge 14 megabytes in size), the program's response time easily improved by 100% or more. Imagine my 66mHz delight.

Macromedia xRes is well though-out and suitable for high-end work. A competitive upgrade price for Photoshop users is available, so if you already do this kind of work and struggle with humongous files, consider the xRes solution. --K.S.

(This review appeared, in a slightly different form, in the 1996 "tech issue" of the Weekly Alibi.)