Amazon.com Review
Fractal Design Corp.'s Fractal Painter, a bitmap-based painting and editing program, mimics natural media so successfully that it's a real pleasure to use. Of course, you should have a modicum of artistic talent if you're to create something decent-looking.
Fractal Design Painter 4 Complete, a guide to Fractal Painter 4.0 for Macintosh and Windows, introduces both dabblers and artists to every feature of the package, explaining exactly how to use each brush tool, and set brush angle and size, to achieve specific effects. One 29-page section shows picture after picture of the same fish drawing with various paintbrush effects applied, which is a really useful reference guide when you want to find the perfect paint effect for your purpose. Sperling also teaches you about Painter's special-effects brushes and advanced painting tools, including paper textures and the Image Hose. She shows various sophisticated images, some of which are presented in full-color plates, and deconstructs the method the artists used to create them. In taking you through several photo-editing and -compositing tasks, Sperling introduces the package's selecting, masking, and cloning tools and special effects for images and type. You also learn how to create cartoons and animations as well as image maps and button bars for Web output. Whether or not you're an artist, you can take advantage of the ample and clear-cut artistic and program-related advice and eventually become a proficient Painter user. A CD includes sample image files, paper textures, and Macintosh and Windows demo versions of Painter 4.