Isn't it awful when you make a fractal, then after nabbing the image, you notice it is all "grainy" and looks somewhat "unfinished"?
I thought so too to begin with, and then I learned about GAMMA, BRIGHTNESS, and VIBRANCY.
These are VERY important, and work WELL with your rendering, either the quick render, or the high quality render! Here is how to find them, and use them. You will see a HUGE difference in the final design 
1st: Open APOPHYSIS. Either version, it doesn't matter. Your image will appear different than the one below, that doesn't matter either because you will be using whatever flame you desire. This worX for ALL of them!
Now click on the area shown in the diagram below...
OK, now you will see CAMERA, RENDERING, GRADIENT, and IMAGE SIZE. You want to click on RENDERING, as shown below
Here you will find the GAMMA, BRIGHTNESS, and VIBRANCY. These are VERY important for making your image appear CLEAR & SMOOTH after your rendering is done! The GAMMA is usually set quite high, regardless of the flame that you are playing with, and high gamma settings usually result in grainy fractals. We want to click and drag that gamma and bring it close to the left side of the settings bar. You'll notice the image getting brighter as you do so...
Below we see the brighter image. Just use your brightness bar now to compensate for the gamma correction you made. Sometimes I need to use the little arrows on each side of the bar to do this, as trying to click and grab doesn't give me the accuracy I need in this stage. Also, you may want to play around with the vibrancy here. I find it is not as important as the GAMMA & BRIGHTNESS, but it often DOES make a difference
Once you are happy with the GAMMA & BRIGHTNESS, do your render as normal, and patiently wait to see your new MASTERPIECE!!!
OK, so this EASY little tip will really help you make smoooooth looking fractals. "X"periment a bit with it, as each fractal you make will require slightly different settings. I'm SURE you will LOVE the difference it makes! 
Happy Fractal-ing!
"X"
