That second one is my favorite....I wish, I wish I could watch over the shoulder of an UltraFractal user and see how you manipulate the fractals. You get effects like those neat burgundy-colored shades overlapping each other....I have yet to figure out how to do that (and a lot of other things I see here!) with the free and shareware for Macs that I've been experimenting with..............

well part of it is because ultrafractal allows you to make several layers and merge them. you can do the EXACT same thing patricia, you just have to make several fractals, then import them into a paint program and use them as layers in the same picture. Ultrafractal also allows you to play with the alpha channel and really, it's a nice fractal program but it's much more a paint program that makes fractals than a fractal exploration program. try this. use your fractal program to make a spiral with shades of blue. then use it to make a spiral with shades of red. take them into a paint program, use the blue for layer1 and the red for layer 1. play with the merge effects and filters and see what you can get. for more information visit janet presslers ultrafractal tutorial pages and read through them. it'll give you a fairly good idea of how things are being created.