Testers say Painter 2.0 about to make a splash. (Fractal Design Corp.'s graphics software) (Product Announcement)

Users who thought Fractal Design Corp.'s Painter was one of the more interesting and innovative graphics packages to surface last year should hang on to their berets.

Painter 2.0, currently wowing beta testers, is due to ship to Macintosh users at Macworld next month and to Windows users in February.

Offering a generous array of new tools, Painter lets users work with their computers to simulate natural artistic media such as oil paint, pastels, watercolors, and a variety of paper and canvas types.

Fractal has upgraded its $399 software to give users more flexibility in importing and editing photos and in producing their work with the use of direct color …