I hadn't thought of doing any fractals before I read this thread but after reading it I got inspired to try it. Apophysis isn't on a mac so I sought out another piece of software, I settled on "Quadrium 2" it got the best reviews.
So some 48 hours later my girlfriend has left, my eyes are bleeding and I haven't got anything I truly like! Don't get me wrong I love it and will keep plugging away till I have cracked it but being from an Illustration background I am used to moving things (physically on the screen) and just clicking an object to change its colour, as far as I can see with the fractals software that I have used, its a lot harder to achieve what you have in your mind and just have to keep tweaking until what you are working on looks pretty.