For me, I think it's all about the contentment of the artist. Some people are content to stop at a certain point, where others keep working. Neither are wrong, just different approaches. Speeking of Apophysis, it seems that a good amount of people move in packs. When the new waves variation came out, the gallery was full of them. After a while it died down. Now it seems like I'm seeing scripts, specifically spiral scripts, being used heavily. Personally, I don't follow any trends with Apophysis. I try to go in my own direction, as should everyone. I just got through going through all the variations doing pure renders with them (no mixed variations). I also mix my variations for every new fractal I create. Never save entire batches, and never redo a completed fractal, but instead start from scratch every time. I'm not saying people should go to that extreme for everything, but I've learned a ton about Apophysis by doing all of this. I'm a purist at heart. I believe the render should speak for itself and not need postworking to make it great. That's all I'll say about that soapbox. Your posting actually raised two problems. The second problem is the comments. This has been hashed numerous times before and probably will be again, but overall, the feedback should always be constructive for improvements, not just uhs and ahs. I fall into the "excellant" comments sometimes, but I always try to tell the people what and why I like about their image. I'm not going to fix all the problems with this, but hopefully I've given you some things to think about, which is my whole focus in all that I do. Jeff