Here's a link to an UF tutorial you might want to try: http://market.renderosity.com/%7Efractal/CommunityPage/Links-FracTutorials.htm It explains mostly how to make masks with the gradient editor(alpha channel stuff). It also shows how to use the "Switch Mode" to find pleasing spirals with formulae that support it. You can tell by whether or not the Switch Mode icon along the top toolbar is greyed out. And it shows how to make some textures and apply them to different areas of a fractal with masks. It's a "walk-thru" type thing where you are shown step by step how to make a specific image. The parameters of the image is provided at the bottom of the tutorial so that you can copy the strange jumble of text and right-click paste it into any open fractal window in UF. You can use it to check yourself as you go along. If you know some Photoshop, then the layering and merging stuff you'll understand right away. What's neat about UF is the super easy way you scale, rotate and position the image or just one or a few layers of the image by "zooming" or holding down Ctrl or Alt while you drag with your maose cursor within the fractal window. MUCH easier than the clunky way PS does it with the "transforms" junk. Never could figure why Adobe didn't see fit to supply hot keys to do that stuff. One thing you can't do in UF is "flatten". You can, however, either render the image to disk with anti-aliasing built in or just export it in whatever file format you want and then it would open in PS as a single layer that is a flattened version of your fractal layers in UF. When you get to the point where you are using a lot of layers - I've done them with as many as 170 - it's best to work within a small fractal window as changes take a LONG time to complete if you try to work in a really big window. I use 444x333, typically. Have fun! Rick