New purchase, some hints please

Greetings
I download the evaluation of v.5 and had been playing around with it for the past week or so. I really like this product, I'm very experienced in Photoshop and other such programs for my photo work, but this product is a very enjoyable challenge. And some of the artists work I've seen doing this is just insane. One of the reasons that convinced me to buy it was the community response to questions and the authors timely replies. I did have one question, well I have many, many, but just one for now.
If I sit down and decide i want to build an image that is mostly one color or another, and have certain look, where should I start. I don't expect a step by step but what should I start with? do I do the colors in the Outside and Inside tabs? I know I have A LOT of reading and experimentation to yet, but just wanted to get pointed in the right direction, if that makes any sense. Thanks

Ha! A seemingly simple question but one that is fiendishly difficult to answer!

The "look" of a fractal is largely down to your choice of formula and the colouring algorithm that you apply. The possibilities of just these two elements in the fractal design process are enormous. Your taste and preferred style will dictate much of what (and how) you achieve the look you want. Some artists like constructing complex patterns or textural works, others work almost exclusively with abstracts. Me, I'm usually an orbit trap gal, I love spirals and distinct shapes. I know a lot of UF artists through Deviant Art and the most amazing thing is that most of them have very distinct personal artistic styles. So as well as the possibilities UF offers with its formulas there is the added element of the artist him/herself, stamping their ideas, style, colours etc on the finished product.

So without knowing what you like and what you want to achieve it's rather difficult to advise.

I would suggest you initially try to familiarize yourself with a restricted choice of just one or two basic formulas and pair these with one of just a few colourings. By limiting your choice for a short while you will gain some valuable experience which you can later apply to other combinations. I say this because it's easy to get overwhelmed by the thousands of possible formulas and colourings that are in the database, many of which can be quite difficult if you are new to the program and you just end up running round like a headless chicken, not knowing where to start! Sound familiar at all?

For formulas start by using a basic Mandelbrot or Julia formula from Standard.ufm (on the Formula tab) together with one of a basic “toolset” of colouring algorithms (on the Outside tab)...

Here is a short list of colourings that I have found to be relatively easy to use and very flexible, giving
interesting and fun results almost straight away (use on Outside):

• Orbit Traps (UF3) in dmj3.ucl
• Doodads and Thingamajigs in ldm.ucl
• DoodadsII, ThingamajigsII, Plane Curve Traps II and Thin Orbit TrapsII in tma.ucl
• Gaussian Integer and Triangle Inequality Average in Standard.ucl
• Whimsical in jam.ucl

In my experience it is much more common to use the colouring on the Outside tab. Certain formulas require Inside colouring and some can use both but you will most likely be using the Outside to start off with.

As for gradients you could try using a greyscale gradient to start off with - experimenting with shape and design without the distraction of colour can be helpful. When you find an image you are happy with you can introduce some colour to liven things up a little. Add one or more duplicate layers and try different gradients on these with different Merge modes. You can get UF to generate randomized gradients which can be fun (F5-F8 keys on Windows, I don't know the Mac equivalent). Play with Color Density and other settings at the top of the Outside tab (these affect how actual colours are applied to the fractal).

As experience grows you can slowly try new formulas & colourings. Or load up some shared parameters* and look at how the artist used formula/colouring combinations to make the image. Maybe take a layer from this and use it as a starting point for your own exploration (please credit original artist if you do this unless your tweaks are so far gone that there is no hint of the original). This might be the best way of finding what formulas/colourings produce the sort of thing you want so look around for images you would like to make and have a good poke around the parameters! In time you will begin to understand how to go about getting a particular shape, effect or texture and then you will be able to be more purposeful in your image making. Until then you need to practice, experiment and carefully observe how things affect a fractal. Make notes, save good combination layers for later use and don't be afraid to dig into the parameters!

*You'll find lots of params in my UF group on Deviant Art here: Fractal with parameters

Hope these (rather random) thoughts help!

Wow! Thanks Chris. This is what I hoped to find just a starting point, thanks so much for so much detail.
I find, like anything else, once you learn the basics you can go off on your own... I appreciate your time to respond!

You're welcome. I had a hard time when starting out too (don't we all? lol) so I try to help others a bit when I can.

I just had another thought: I have some simpler images and starter layers for old challenges I ran on my DA group. You might find the combinations interesting to look at and use as a springboard for your own tweaking. That was what they were put there for - to help others discover new formulas. In fact, you could follow the links to the challenge journals to get further tips and ideas about the formulas in question, perhaps doing the challenge privately yourself if you want to exercise your budding UF skills.

All but two of the fractal images here have params underneath the images:
https://velvet--glove.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=scraps

Help yourself, they are free to use as you wish.

Hi Chris, thank you. the link on "scraps" wasn't hot, but it came through the email notification so I got the link. However I'm not sure what I'm suppose to do with the block of code. I haven't gotten that far yet

Thanks for all your tips and help

Oh... sorry about the link, I should have checked it was working. I've edited my post with the full link text now but it still isn't clickable, I don't know what's up with that. Shrug

Anyhoo... all you have to do with parameter text is select and copy ALL of the published parameter text, from the title all the way down to the final curly brace character at the very end ---> }

Then open a new fractal window in UF, make sure it has the focus, and paste that text into that window. UF should now produce the fractal for you.

You'll find yourself doing this procedure a lot as this is the way people tend to share their fractals. Likewise, if you want to share a fractal; open it in UF, click on the window and perform a "Copy" operation. Then paste the result wherever you like: in an email, on a forum, in a text editor etc.
Just be sure to use plain text apps rather than a fancy word processor because the latter can mess up the code by adding hidden carriage returns or spaces to the text which will break it.

You have been more than helpful Chris, and appreciate all your patience. I'm assuming by "focus" you mean make sure the window is dominant on the screen. And I should paste directly into the Fractal screen. If that is true, I get this message. I tried this a few times. I'm suspecting I need more of the free .ucl files?
anyway, thanks so much for all the help you have provided.

UPDATE: Yes that was it, some of the formulas you were accessing I didn't have in my folders. Those worked well thanks again

Yes, click on the fractal window before copying or pasting. Otherwise you might inadvertently copy a gradient or something else.

As for the dialog above this is what UF throws up when it can't find a formula. There are all sorts of reasons for this. Sometimes UF will suggest something here that seems to match - if so take the suggestion. If not, as is the case here, try updating your Public database files. If that doesn't work and you suspect a Private file (i.e. not in the Public online db) then ask the person who provided the params where you might find it.

You seem to have found & downloaded this formula now. If you haven't done so already be sure to do a "Full Formula Collection" download to get you bang up to date. It's a good idea to update your formulas regularly, by the way. At least weekly if you are an active user.