Think of tags as like a book index where you find words and which pages they are on, the same principle applies here. Although it's taken a stage further so it might not be the word, but the subject, so for example if you're looking for things to do with fractal gradients for example. A tag may bring back posts with gradient files, as well as posts that discuss gradients, or tutorials about them.

synth variation sample 13

Synth

Variations that emulate a number of other variations, adding wavy effects using a technique from audio synthesizers.

julia group variation julian2

Julia

Variations based on polynomial Julia sets. For escape time fractals, the formula is z → z^n + c. For flames, the mapping is reversed and the “+ c” part is done by the affine transform, so these variations basically take the root of the input taken as a complex number, returning one of the results at random.