Creating Simple Fractals

The following is an example of something you will create before the end of this tutorial:

What is a Fractal?
The definition is: A mathematically generated pattern that is reproducible at any magnification or reduction.

However, in Photoshop, we do not need to use such complicated math functions to make a fractal, but just the Pen tool and Actions window.

Preparation:
So, let’s get started!

1. First, open up Photoshop (6/7/CS2/etc).
2. Now, create a new document with a white background and make the resolution something fairly large. For this tutorial I made mine 1600x1200.
3. Now, that we have our new document lets make a new layer. We shall call this layer “Fractal”. Select this layer and then read on to the procedure.

Procedure:

1. Select the paint brush tool and make sure that you have the size of the brush at 1px.

2. Now select the pen tool and make sure that you click the paths button where it displays the options for the pen tool.
3. This part gets tricky, so read carefully. Take the pen tool and draw any sort of path in the middle of the document (Fig 1):

Try not to make it too complex, but not too simple. Here is what mine looks like. Once you have finished with the path, hold ctrl + shift on your keyboard and select all the anchor points in the path you have just created. It should look something like this (Fig 2):

4. Once you have done this, select your paint brush and then we can start using the actions palette to record our actions!
5. Find the Actions window or go to Windows>Actions. Now, click the ‘create new action’ button.

6. Once you have done this, name this action “Fractal 1”. Click record:

Alright, we are about half-way through now.
et's continue from where we left off:

7. After Step vi, press Ctrl + t (transform):

8. This should create a box around your path. Change the size too 101% of the path and make the rotate 1 on the transform toolbar at the top. Click, ‘confirm’ (the checkmark on the right).

9. You are almost done, but not yet! Find the ‘Paths’ window or go to Windows>Paths. You should see your path there. Click the ‘stroke path with brush’ button.

12. Once you have done that, you should notice that your path has been stroked with a 1px brush stroke.
13. If all is good, you can now click ‘Stop recording’ from the actions window.

14. On the actions window, click ‘Fractal 1’ and then click play.
15. If successful, the actions will play and they will transform and stroke your path.
16. This is the fun part. Click ‘play’ a bunch of times and you will notice that a bunch of lines are being created. If you do this enough, you can create some dazzling fractals:

17. This is what my outcome was after like a million clicks

18. Once you are finished and love the outcome of your fractal, you can go ahead and delete the work path.
19. This is my outcome after duplicating the fractal (same as what you saw in the previous page) and rotating it:

Conclusion:
Well, I hope you liked this tutorial. Here are some tips you can use to make your fractals look better.

• Incorporate the filter, Blur, after you record the stroke action. This will make your lines look more like gradients and less “liney”.

• Change the amount of percent of size or rotation you record while using the transform tool.

• Make a ton of these things because they are so fun to do!

If you have any questions, feel free to post them