by
Martin aka mDJ | 13 December 2005I recently posted
a few pictures of some fractals I created in Photoshop on
the forum. Well, I guess a lot of people liked it so I
thought I would write this tutorial. 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!
- First, open up Photoshop (6/7/CS2/etc).
- Now, create a new document with a white background
and make the resolution something fairly large. For this
tutorial I made mine 1600x1200.
- 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:
- Select the paint brush tool and make sure that you
have the size of the brush at 1px.

- Now select the pen tool and make sure that
you click the paths button where it displays the options
for the pen tool.
- 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):

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

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

Alright, we are about half-way through now. In the next
page, you will really see your random lines turn into
something resembling a great fractal design!
Onwards to the
next
page!
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