I think the best way to find out what you really like is to look at your own gallery, atleast it will give you some good hints. As for me, I have to disagree with Fractelaar on a few points, one is cleanliness and sharpness. I like fractals to be gritty. Mainly because it disguises the image's origin. I don't like looking at an image knowing exactly wich formula was used, and I don't want people to look at my images like that. As for colors, I like monochrome and I like colorful. But the coloring should make sense. What I don't prefer however are clean colors and gradients. Noise is almost always good. :) About patterns... this being the essential ingredient in fractals, I want them to be 'difficult' to spot and not too obvious. If you emulate non-computergenerated art, it's a huge plus. For instance, if you manage do create a fractal that looks as if it was painted with a brush, it makes it interesting (atleast for me). And ofcourse... I almost left out the most important thing, ingenuity. Use the fractalprogram in a way that other people normally don't, include other programs in the process. Extend the fractal into 3D, print the fractal, toss mudd on it and then take a picture of it. Make a frame with the fractal on the outside and nothing on the inside. And... max 50% of your images should include spirals (just kidding) :). Anything that doesn't look like everything else.