In firefly's tutorial "Fractal Explorer for Beginners," Step 7 mentions making sure "Enable Auto-Iteration Control" is checked. This may have been available in previous versions, but in ver. 2.01, it seems to be missing (as does the F-Set method checkbox). How am I to complete the tutorial? Thanks very much! ~Tim ^_^

Wing it? LOL Sorry, I guess that wasn't much help. Go ahead and try it without having the missing things checked. You may be pleasantly surprised. Also, try checking boxes that are there and not checked. It's a great way to discover what happens. FE is one of the easiest pregrams to use. I think in the long run the gradients are the hardest part to figure out, but even that isn't a horrid experience. Don't be afraid to poke around! Miriah

Thanks Miriah! I'll just have to "wing it," as you say. ~Tim ^_-

Feel free to email me if you have any questions. I can't guarantee I can help since I learn most things by the seat of my pants, but I'll be happy to try. I learned the basics of spiral creation by reading a tutorial for Ultra fractal. I figured the basics had to be the same regardless of the program. LOL Heck, the whole point of belonging to a community is to help, right? Miriah

Thanks for the help, Miriah! I guess I'll do like I do with most puzzling programs and just "play with it." Fortunately, it was programmed with Undo and Redo commands. Also, lotsa good stuff to be found in the spot files! Have a good one! ~Tim ^_-

Excellent advice and exactly what my suggestions would have been Miriah! Tim, just explore and revel in what you find :) The tutorial was more to aid folks in losing their fear of the program and to jump start them into some "click fests" of their own. I love FE and spend hours just happily clicking on options and then unclicking them again. I would guide you in FE v2 if I had it but I haven't graduated FE v1 yet (smiles) Good luck and may you find many hours of fun and relaxtion with that program! Brenda

Thanks for the help, Brenda! I just finished with a fractal (my best yet), and had rendered it (supposedly at 1024 x 768), but the final image came out to 512 x 384 (exactly half that of what I wanted)! YIPE!! Do you have any idea how I can get it to render at the size I set it to? I saved the spot file and thumbnail, but it was that full-size render that stumps me. I planned to post this here and in the FE User Group mailing list (and maybe 3DC). I posted the question about the Russian help file in the mailing list, and BubblyBabs wrote back and said she thought there was an English version out there somewhere and that she would look for it, but that was a couple of days ago, and nothing has come of it yet. Thanks again! Bytheway, yesterday was my 42nd birthday. Can you believe it, here I am, 42 years old, never been married...If I keep talking like this, I could get depressed. Better go cheer myself up with another go at FE. ~Tim ^_-

giggles You're never going to leave the house once you get hooked on FE.........LMAO!!!! Happy Birthday! Don't check any of the options included with the "save picture" (I think that's what it's called) window. It will change the size of your render. Make the thumb in another program, or go back and save the pic again in the thumb size. Don't anialias in that window either. Do that before you save. You should get the pic at the size you specify. Are you totally confused yet? (I tend to do that...grins) Miriah

I see what you mean on being hooked! The only thing I check is "Auto Spot Saving." I usually do the main work in (whatever program) and do the final stuff in PSP7 (including making the thumb). I do know about this stuff I like to call "GPA," which is short for "Graphics Program Addiction." It's also short for "Graphics Programs Anonymous." The other addiction I have is for MojoWorld, but I usually post in the 3DC areas. The other fractal programs I have (and are "learning") include Apophysis, Ultra Fractal and XenoDream. I'm just wondering whether I should make images with all of them, or pick one and master it? What do you think? Bytheway, I already posted my first "good" pic. Thanks very much! ~Tim ^_-

Master one???? Yikes. Where would the fun in that be? There are a few Ultra fractal masters here, and their work is stunning. I plunk between Fe, Apo and Xenodream.(oh, and Terragen for Mixed medium stuff) I doubt I'll master any of them. You learn a lot by playing in assorted programs. Perhaps the purists will say otherwise, but that's how I feel. Most of all, have fun! Miriah

Oh...no, you must be checking something to get FE to downsize your image. Try again and let me know what happens. M

Attached Link: Image Sizes

According to Micheal's "Dealing with Image Sizes" tutorial (click on link), right off he says: "First in FE go to Preferences/spots and images and uncheck the Antialising is off by default box or FE will reduce the size of your image in half." I unchecked it and set my image size to 2048 x 1536, rendered, then saved (including the spot file) it. In PSP, I resized the pic down to 1024 x 768 (to cut down on the jaggies, since antialias was off), did a little tweaking here and there, and then used the Optimization Wizard to make the file size smaller, while still retaining as much image quality as possible. Made the thumbnail and posted here. Even though the tut says to use 800 x 600, I usually use 1024 x 768. Unfortunately, Rosity only allows one gallery post per day, whereas 3DC allows three. ~Tim ^_-