I was sceptical about flame fractals to begin with as well (though I liked the look of the algorithm, I hadn't seen much that impressed me in the way of "finished" images). When I started making flame images they seemed too easy: if I didn't spend as much time on them as with my UF images how could they be as good? I've grown out of that a bit (but I've been doing basically nothing but flames for a couple of years). It's the result that counts, not how much effort an image took to make, and I think the variety of flame styles in the fractal gallery shows that there's plenty of room for individual creativity to shine through, even with "single layer" flames. I also think that the variation in quality shows that Apophysis isn't doing all of the work. Mark