As if we needed more proof that effects that were once the sole domain of experts and whizz-kids are now actively in the hands of less experienced users, Morpheus Photo Animation Suite is a powerful yet easy-to-use collection of tools that, with little fuss, allows you to morph or warp one photo into another. Let's go through the morphing process to give a flavour of how it works.

Working through a wizard driven menu - with optional beginner's choices, which make things easier but shield you from the more advanced functions - the software simply asks you first and foremost to select the images you want to morph. In the beginner mode you can morph between two images only, but that restriction is lifted should you take on the aforementioned advanced functionality.

Once you've loaded in your pictures, you then need to add dots around the key features. So, for instance, if it's photos of human faces you're dealing with then you'd layer the dots around them, at the expense of the background.

These dots are then mirrored on the next image in your morph and, if needs be, you can adjust them to make sure all the key features of your subject fall within the program's grasp. Moving dots is quite fiddly compared to the rest of the program, but it's a necessary evil. Fail to do so, particularly on morphs of more than two images, and the end result is genuinely less impressive.

As you build up your project a timeline appears at the bottom, to which you can add photo mixes, key frames and generally manage the entirety of your work.

Once you've previewed your morph and are happy with the end result, the next job is to render the timeline, with the program then spitting out an AVI file (compressed or uncompressed, although you also have the option of many different image file formats) with a multitude of in-built encoding options to pick from; including, commendably, H.264. Rendering is quite quick and the end result impressive.

The working principle is the same across the Photo Warp and Photo Mix applications, which in turn allow you to exaggerate features and mix images together. And once you get into the swing of effectively placing dots where they need to go - and the more dots the merrier, seems to be the guiding idea - then it's not tricky to come up with some amusing results.

And that's the best way to approach Morpheus. Because as a suite of applications it allows you to have some easy fun with your photos, albeit touching on functions that existing photo and video editing packages have within their grasp. It's not vital software, but it is good at encouraging you to have fun with your images, and that's no bad thing.

Verdict
An interesting suite with limited real-life usage but a fair amount of entertainment value. It's worth at least trying the free demo download.

Company: Morpheus

Tags: polymorphism (biology) graphics shareware windows animation image management iphone image cataloguing