Imagine if Painter were a vector-based instead of a pixel-based program. Fractal claims that's what Expression is: an infinitely scaleable Painter. To some degree they're right, but unfortunately, not enough.
Expression is a natural-media path-based drawing program. It simulates various natural media such as brushes, pens, and pencils, through an ingenious use of stroke styles and stroke transparency. Each stroke type is actually a path-based object, which can be manipulated in ways a collection of pixels can’t. Using the Paintbrush tool, you apply a stroke style to the page; if you use a pressure-sensitive tablet, the stroke can increase and decrease in width as it is dragged, creating an effect that resembles a brush stroke. Using the Painter-esque color selection palette, any combination of colors can be applied to a stroke style. The result: A remarkable imitation of anything from a sketch to an oil painting.
The resulting file can be transformed into a bitmap, or it can be saved in Illustrator 5 format for tweaking within your favorite illustration program (FreeHand or Illustrator, for example). In addition, you can save the Expression artwork as an EPS image that can be included in EPS-enabled programs, such as PageMaker and QuarkXPress.
The concept of painting with vectors is not new; both Illustrator and FreeHand have brush tools that vary in width when a pressure-sensitive tablet is used. But Expression’s use of stroke styles provides a unique way for users to feel like they're actually painting, in the tradition of Painter. And die vector nature of each path allows for editing by dragging points and handles. As a bonus, you can create and edit any number of stroke styles, providing an infinite number of brush stroke types for any one drawing.
Alspach, Ted. (December 1996). Fractal Design Expression. MacAddict. (pg. 64).