At 05:34 AM 2/4/08 +0000, you wrote:

.

you know if you set the max iterations to say, 1000000, that doesnt mean every pixel iterates that many times, they all bail out according to the nature of the fractal and algorithm at some number less than that. but i assume the lake regions use the max.

is there a way to determine the maximum number of iterations that any pixel(s) actually did?

i think there is a way but i cant find it

You can get a pretty good estimate of the iteration count by setting the logmap feature to 2, which checks the edge of the frame and automatically resets the logmap to the lowest iteration count it finds there. JIM