Well im only a newbie at this fractal stuff but this is what I did. I searched thru hours and hours of surfing peoples galleries and I made note of the images I liked and tried to find what program they made the image in ***. Then I found the various sites for the programs and checked them out in detail. Then I downloaded the ones I liked. The 2 free ones I started with were Sterling and QS Flame. And that was all she wrote until I happened across an image in a fellow Terrageneer's gallery made with a program called Xenodream. After visiting that website I thought really hard about it for an hour then logged on and bought the damn thing, sight unseen and no demo, and Ive never regretted it! I have also tried Ultra Fractal which allows free use for 30 days but I found it REALLY REALLy hard to understand. ***(where possible - its really important to note on your websites what programs you use for a particular image for peoples like me - and im sure im not the only one:) Anyway hope that helps Stacey