Some things I don’t like with this one. While its idea is good, the design needs some work. First things first, the crits.
1- I don’t know whether it was on purpose or not, but the left side has something like a single pixel border overlay, but only on that side. Just a darker area up the whole side. Try using a single black pixel stroke for something like this. It will work very well in this size.
2- Your copyright needs work. In this piece the focus itself was the copyright, unfortunately for you, no one likes to stare at a copyright. A logo maybe, but the C is not that attractive. Try using a pixel font, ‘proggy clean’ works well, for the copyright. Stick it in a lower corner and possibly fade it a bit.
3- I like the theme of a mirror image, however you deviate from it towards the top. The bottom ‘sparks’ are mirrored to each other whereas the top ones are smudged individually. Your best bet for something like that would be a zoom blur or the ‘zoom’ tool in filter>liquify.
4- Another piece of inconsistency is the overall sharpness and blur on the image. The farther back the pieces seem, the sharper they are and the closer the blurrier. I don’t know if you meant for a warped perspective, but its what I’m seeing. Maybe go over the piece with the sharpen and the blur tools by hand?
5- The last bit goes back to the mirror idea that I was seeing towards the bottom of the piece. Both of those fractals are the same, just one is translated to the right from the other. You probably should have flipped them or reflected them to each other.
6- Final thing is that there is a lot of darker negative space towards the bottom that you could do something with. Maybe move the copyright down there, make it smaller, a better font, and give it some effects. That way it isn’t a focal, but still servers an aesthetic appeal.
Good Job on the Apophysis work though.
Thanks for the criticism. I never noticed the border.
Oh, so it is possible…
Anywho, this brightens me up, just to look at it. I’d like to use it as a screen saver maybe