The Fractal Design Painter software is described in this beautifully illustrated book. In addition to providing the user with the basics of how to use the software, the authors also include several dazzling works created with Fractal Design Painter by professional artists.

This book is geared toward artists, providing the light reading expected of most Macintosh books along with a detailed understanding of artistic media. For those would-be artists considering the purchase of the software, this book is especially useful, since it includes a demo disk that is almost fully functional. (Save, Cut, and Copy are disabled.) In fact, in many ways, this book feels like a sales brochure for the software it describes. Nonetheless, it is an effective sales brochure.

The book is divided into two sections, the first describing the features of the software, and the second containing seven artists’ works using Fractal Design Painter and testimonials about the software.

The first section is full of lists, but covers the features well. Since the software is fairly CPU-intensive, the lists expose the user to the software features in minutes, rather than the potential hours it would take to walk through the software and test all the features for oneself, particularly with older, slower Macs. In addition, each chapter has a short exercise that helps solidify the reader’s understanding of the features discussed.

The first chapter is particularly useful, providing insight into the performance problems you may have and the equipment you should buy (for example, a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet is recommended). The authors have expended considerable effort in capturing a multitude of application windows, showing nearly all the features discussed in the book.

The second section of the book covers the work of seven artists, allowing about six pages each to provide one detailed example of one painting, and then show a few other paintings in each artist’s portfolio.

A final jewel provided by the authors is help for the budding electronic artist in how to output a real copy of one’s work. They also include a list of third-party software products the user may want to explore.

I enjoyed reading this book and, like many who will read it, I was tempted to head to my local software distributor and buy a complete copy of the program. But in the same way that fine oil paints and great canvas do not make you an artist, neither does Fractal Design Painter. On the other hand, real artists will love it.