Create a Beautiful Floral Fractal Illustration in Photoshop

Two Variations of the final image

Fractal Explorer offers a lot of tweaking possibilities. So many of them that you can spend a lot of time coming up with different variations of the fractal. Anyway, there are a couple I would like to highlight.

In the following image, I simply set the Iteration Color Blend to 1. This will blend the fractal to the background color according to the iteration step. The first iteration (the bigger flowers) are not blending with the background. The following iterations start to blend gradually until the last iteration which becomes 100% transparent. This gives some kind of 3D illusion of depth. As if the fractal is sinking in some kind of abyss.

$Photoshop fractals$

Another interesting tweak is to dive into the fractal using the Zoom and Center options. This is a bit cumbersome because there is no manual zoom and panning, but with a little effort you can come up with different close ups of the same fractal. There is no problem with the resolution of the tiniest parts. As you are zooming through the image, the fractal is recalculated.

On the other side, there IS an issue with the bigger parts. The closest you are to the base object (the flower in this case) the jaggier the edges look. You can correct this in two steps. First, set the Orbit Trap Edge Detail close to zero. For this image I set it up to 0.2 which is the minimum you can set. This will ease the edges a little bit. After that, the second step would be retouching the image in Photoshop. That’s something I didn’t do with the image below, just for the sake of showing the exact output of the filter.

$Photoshop fractals$

More Fractal Explorer Examples

Fractal Explorer filter was created by Tom Bedard, an ex-physicist that showcases in his web site, SubBlue, outstanding mathematical and generative graphics.

Visit Subblue’s Fractal Explorer Flickr gallery for more stunning images.

Fractal Graphics Books

The Fractal Geometry of Nature

Imagine an equilateral triangle. Now, imagine smaller equilateral triangles perched in the center of each side of the original triangle–you have a Star of David. Now, place still smaller equilateral triangles in the center of each of the star’s 12 sides. Repeat this process infinitely and you have a Koch snowflake, a mind-bending geometric figure with an infinitely large perimeter, yet with a finite area. This is an example of the kind of mathematical puzzles that this book addresses. Read More…

Fractals: The Patterns of Chaos: Discovering a New Aesthetic of Art, Science, and Nature

Fractals are unique patterns left behind by the unpredictable movements — the chaos — of the world at work. The branching patterns of trees, the veins in a hand, water twisting out of a running tap — all of these are fractals. Learn to recognize them and you will never again see things in quite the same way. Read More…

The Beauty of Fractals: Images of Complex Dynamical Systems

The authors present an unusual attempt to publicize the field of Complex Dynamics, an exciting mathematical discipline of respectable tradition that recently sprang into new life under the impact of modern computer graphics. Where previous generations of scientists had to develop their own inner eye to perceive the abstract aesthetics of their work, the astounding pictures assembled here invite the reader to share in a new mathematical experience, to revel in the charm of fractal frontiers. Read More…