Welcome to Fractal Forums

Hi all!

I see it's a bit rude to start off with a help request, but this is really driving me insane. To put it short, I've come to this flame:

<flame name="165_mother hydra_2" version="Apophysis 2.07 beta" size="300 400" center="-0.000994704643919865 -0.035" scale="165" angle="3.14141812066459" rotate="-179.99" zoom="2.399" oversample="1" filter="0.2" quality="1" background="0 0 0" brightness="3" gamma="3" >
   <xform weight="0.6" color="0.439773040357977" symmetry="1" linear="1" coefs="0.59917 -0.316767 0.421271 0.771314 -0.275119 -0.108795" />
   <xform weight="0.36" color="0.0497281819116324" symmetry="1" linear="1" coefs="-1 0 0 1 0 0" />
   <xform weight="0.181309056" color="0.146152153611183" symmetry="0.5" linear="0.498316" horseshoe="0.26" polar="0.049284" popcorn="0.15" coefs="-0.066171 -0.147717 0.178836 -0.076562 0.188359 0.331276" />
   <xform weight="0.181309056" color="0.264682070817798" symmetry="0.5" linear="0.498316" horseshoe="0.26" polar="0.049284" popcorn="0.15" coefs="-0.078013 0.141384 -0.148395 0.042737 0.308192 0.234658" />
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      8360157D5B1179570F7D5409814D04824700844800814900
   </palette>
</flame>

well, no matter what I try it seems I can't get rid of bright spots - they're not there when preview quality is <30, become noticeable at 50ish and look a total mess in final rendering (2000 q, 0.6 fr, 2 os). I think the issue is with transform #4, but I can't go any further than that - as of now I've tried toggling gradient parametres, transform simmetry/colour/weight, even changed transform variations, all to no avail. Only thing that sort of works is to crank up gamma to above 4 and lower brightness to 2 or less, but then the flame gets just too dark and grainy to use and all depth goes down the can.
Dunno, really. Maybe I'm just overlooking something obvious (or maybe it's the way my pc signals it's strained from too many renders).
Any suggestion/hint from your side is most welcome. Thank you in advance :)

I'll go introducing myself now :)

Well, allow me to give a quick Greetings and Welcome to this particular Forum!!    :)

I have no available time at the moment to render and try out your "problem flame", but maybe I can take a look at it tomorrow and see what happens.