How?

Ahhh....that's the fun part!

I use any tool that takes my fancy (that I can afford :) )

My main tools:

My PC - Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, 2 gig RAM..and masses of storage space

My Canon 350D digital camera - started with an Olympus 8080 digital which I still have (and use - much better for IR shots than the Canon although still not really good enough) - the advent of dgital photography really opened up my world. So fast and instant - I can see where I go wrong straight away and learn from it. Never really got into film photography.

And the software:

Photoshop is my main tool - over the past 12 months I have learned to find my way round it so well I feel uncomfortable using anything else.

Apophysis for designing and rendering flame fractals. Actually, for rendering I use Scott Drave's flame code which is now shipped as part of Apophysis. Links to all this software can be found under the resources menu in useful places.

Painter - sometimes. Haven't really learned how to make the most of this yet.

An old program called Expression which uses vector brush strokes. Not often but it comes in useful sometimes - again - not exploited it fully yet. Various companies supplied it over the years but Microsoft took it over a while ago. Not really available in its original form now.

Various plugins for PS - one of the main ones being the BUZZ simplifier plugin. Makes a picture painterly and can be used as the start for other painterly processes as it simplifies the picture.

Terragen - sometimes. Wish I had more time ...

Check out that useful places page for more information