If you have worked with Macromedia's Fireworks program, you know that it is a large install, and it has a rather steep learning curve. This is where Shoestring's PictureDicer comes in.

PictureDicer is a Freeware program, 450Kb's in size, that allows you to import .gif, .bmp, .dib, .jpg, .pcx, .tga and .tif files that you want to splice for use in your web page.

Splicing an image allows what once was a large image, to be downloaded in small segments, thus decreasing the web page's load time. PictureDicer allows you to splice the image both vertically and horizontally. This allows you to add image rollovers via java-scripting, and to create navigational menus which wont take as long to load as image maps will.

An extra bonus of PictureDicer, is that it also prepares the HTML coding for you. Since the image being spliced needs to be reorganized using tables, PictureDicer will create an html file in the same directory as the spliced image (you pick the directory when you first import your image) and you can view the source using notepad or whichever way it is you do it.

Overall this is a great program that allows you to splice images without having to figure out the html, or buying a costly software package.



Recommended: Yes