Featured Slideshow needs elipses

I would appreciate help with modifying a Featured Slideshow that is included with Epsilon Theme. Featured pulls 220 characters from the post as well as the photo. I would like to add elipses to the end of the characters. Also if possible I’d like to specify the number of words rather than characters. Both modifications would look more professional. I’ve reviewed forums & how this is done in excerpts, etc but I haven’t been able to modify without breaking. Here is the site http://www.coredance.org

Code from index.php —

<?php
$tmp_query = $wp_query;
query_posts(‘showposts=3&cat=’ . get_cat_ID(dp_settings(‘featured1’)));
if (have_posts()) :
while (have_posts()) : the_post();
?>
<div class=”item”> “>
<?php dp_attachment_image($post->ID, ‘full’, ‘alt=”‘ . $post->post_title . ‘”‘); ?>

<div class=”text”> <?php echo dp_clean($post->post_content, 220); ?> </div>
</div>
<?php
endwhile;
endif;
$wp_query = $tmp_query;
?>

Thank you for any assistance.