diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 7f31692d..f4309e2f 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -45,7 +45,12 @@ before_install:
         travis_retry conda create -n test $ENV six scipy pip flake8 nose;
         source activate test;
       fi
-    - travis_retry pip install coveralls pillow
+    - travis_retry pip install wheel;
+    - if [[ $END != python=2.6* ]] then
+            travis_retry pip install --no-index --find-links=http://wheels.scikit-image.org/ matplotlib;
+      else 
+         pip install matplotlib==1.0
+      end
     - python check_bento_build.py
 
 install:
@@ -74,16 +79,16 @@ script:
     #   https://groups.google.com/a/continuum.io/forum/#!topic/anaconda/-DLG2ZdTkw0
     - if [[ $ENV == python=3.2 ]]; then
         travis_retry sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt4;
-        travis_retry pip install matplotlib==1.3.1;
         travis_retry pip install networkx;
       else
-        travis_retry conda install matplotlib pyqt networkx;
+        travis_retry conda install networkx;
         sudo cp ~/miniconda/envs/test/include/png* /usr/include;
         rm ~/miniconda/envs/test/lib/libm-2.5.so;
         rm ~/miniconda/envs/test/lib/libm.*;
         sudo apt-get install libtiff4-dev libwebp-dev xcftools;
         travis_retry pip install imread;
         travis_retry pip install pyfits;
+        travis_retry pip install pillow;
       fi
     - sudo apt-get install libfreeimage3
     # TODO: update when SimpleITK become available on py34 or hopefully pip
diff --git a/DEPENDS.txt b/DEPENDS.txt
index 8cf3388d..9d6092bb 100644
--- a/DEPENDS.txt
+++ b/DEPENDS.txt
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ Build Requirements
 * `Numpy >= 1.6 <http://numpy.scipy.org/>`__
 * `Cython >= 0.19 <http://www.cython.org/>`__
 * `Six >=1.3 <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/six>`__
+* `Matplotlib >= 1.0 <http://matplotlib.sf.net>`__ 
 
 You can use pip to automatically install the base dependencies as follows::
 
@@ -36,9 +37,6 @@ functionality is only available with the following installed:
 * `NetworkX >= 1.8 <https://networkx.github.io>`__ is needed to use region
 adjacency graph (RAG)-based segmentation functions.
 
-* `Matplotlib >= 1.0 <http://matplotlib.sf.net>`__ is needed to generate the
-examples in the documentation.
-
 * `PyQt4 <http://wiki.python.org/moin/PyQt>`__
    The ``qt`` plugin that provides ``imshow(x, fancy=True)`` and `skivi`.
 
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 1af07ec6..9bb56a8a 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 cython>=0.19
+matplotlib>=1.0
 numpy>=1.6
 scipy>=0.9
 six>=1.3