meeyauw: Friday Fractal: Fractal Trace on GIMP

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Friday Fractal: Fractal Trace on GIMP

I think it was a mistake for me to begin learning fractal software on Windows in February. The weather is great and I should be outside doing all sorts of stuff. But here I am playing fractals. I saw a reference to using a fractal trace filter on GIMP so of course I immediately had to sit down and play with it. Above is a photograph of jewelweed (also called spotted touch-me-not) taken on our Butterfield Pond hike in August. I used the map filter fractal trace and obtained the image below. I like the self-similar frame created by the filter.

I then chose another jewelweed photo and used the filter again:

Clicking on any of these images will open a new browser window and display a large photograph.

And finally I chose one of my favorite sunflower photographs:

I accepted the default settings for the filter on each of these photographs. There is a snowstorm coming next week (hopefully) so I will spend the snow day playing with the filter and other fractals some more. I find these GIMP and Photoshop filters to be a good way to enhance poor quality photographs (the second original jewelweed photo is not my best) and turn them into something interesting.