I finally gave up on Apo 2 and went back to using the original. I don't have UF and saving the images in JPEG really seemed to muck them up in version 2.(Although I still belong to the mail list) I do however love the original. I've gotten pretty good at getting some pretty decent results (I'm a fiddler...can't leave anything alone)and they save nicely. Is there a way to open the flame fractals in Fractal Explorer and play with them there...or use fractals from FE in APO? (no, I'm never happy with what I have and can't afford to purchase any more programs at the moment)I too am a longo dummy, but if I can get things to work, anyone can. Just keep playing with it! Oh, and I will take all of your tips from here and try them out. grins