Hey guys whazzup? I'm trying to learn some cool ways to do abstract images and I was wondering what you guys did. I have photoshop and I dunno if I need brushes or another program or what. Can you guys mention a few that I could check out? Thanks a lot and keep up the good work with the images!

Hi Kyle. Welcome to Caedes! I don't do many abstract images, but if you intend on making abstract fractals.....you could try Tierazon. It's free...and easy to use. It was recommended to me, and now I'm recommending it to you. Here's the web address where you can download the program:
http://home.houston.rr.com/fergusonsc/Tierazon-v29/
Good luck, and I look forward to seeing your images. =0) Randy

I use Paint Shop Pro, it's very good for making abstract images. You can download it for a free trial on the JASC website.

I use Paint Shop Pro 7 generally. Sort of a combination of spraycans, brushes, and use of the Kaleidescope function. You can use Photoshop to do the same kind of thing.

I use Photoshop and when I made the bstracts on this site, I had PS7 but now I'm using CS. Check out Flaming Pear - they have downloadable demo filters, which are great. You can also check out my gallery and see the abstracts there (barring the Rose and Angel images if they are there when you look).

I use Ultra Fractal and Tierazon for mine and sometimes run them through a secondary program like photoshop. Tierazon is free and is a fantastic program. there are a lot of programs out there though. I googled and found all kinds of them and tred them and see what happens. Tierazon and Ultra Fractal work best for what I've tried so far.

Apophysis, www.apophysis.org is a free fractal generating program that is often used in abstract images, as well as just plain fractals. Photoshop helps a ton and a good set of brushes is a must own. There are some great photoshop abstract tutorials out there in the net also that will cover the basic abstract techniques. A great site for tutorials is Pixel2life, http://www.pixel2life.com/ . They have tutorials for just about every popular program being used and if you type in 'abstract' in the search you get a great list of tuts specific to the techniques used.

I use photoshop (you can do many abstract things with that program alone). In addition, I use Tierazon, VChira, Apophysis, Chaoscope, ChaosPro, Fractal Explorer, and other free downloads for PC. To start, if you want to play around - use the gradient tool in photoshop and do a gradient. Now do another one in a different direction - then Edit - Fade Gradient to about 40%. Try some of the different blending modes as you do this. Invert it every once in a while to see what's happening there. Once you have an interesting screen full of color, take it into the Filter - Liquify and play with it there. Play with Photoshop's color controls to get it just the way you want. The pastel backgrounds, and the satin background in some of my latest posts use this photoshop technique. Enjoy. Send me a personal message sometime and let me know how it worked for you. Welcome to Caedes.