Adam Woodhouse, published some great posts recently. Three posts that count for more than 2000 Photoshop brushes.

On a first post, published on January 16, you can get your hands on 42 sets (more than 2000 brushes). A second post, just four days later, places 22 Web 2.0 style brushes for download. Finally, about a month ago, a third post finishes the series by making available 166 brushes of graffiti style letters with lots of variations.

If you want to know more about Adam’s excellent work get on to his DeviantArt page.

Happy brushing.

.:.

Noupe published an excellent and very long list of 73 great graphic headers. You’ll get a bit of everything on this amazing selection. Yet - thankfully - no 2.0 reflections made the list and each and every one of the choices are examples of “near perfect” illustration technique.

An exceptional source of inspiration.

.:.

If you, like me, are a map lover, then this post is definitely for you. The French, - sorry about that - website that I want to introduce you to, makes available more than two hundred ancient sea charts (used by sailors) and some other, also very interesting, maps.

Though image dimensions don’t allow an amazing adventure through the “world of fantastic printing”, 2048/nnnnpx, is still a very nice size tp start from.

You can find the sea charts here and the other maps I was referring to, right over here.

Happy sailing.

.:.

Jonas Buntenbruch took the challenge of creating something new each and every day for the whole year of 2008. On the author own words:

DONE is my personal daily design workout for 2008.
Every day I will flex my design skills by creating one piece in 30 to 60 minutes. The presented works range from scrap and sketches to photos, typographic experiments and random creative masturbation.

Worth the visit… each and every day (Sunday and holidays included).

HDR Walls repeats a used and abused concept: wallpapers depot! Still, there’s a huge difference between this website and all the other ones you’ve seen so far. HDR Walls gives you access to almost five hundred HDRi (High Dynamic Range Imaging) images.

The HDR subject is finally conquering some space and online references. I remember we’ve already made reference to another project of this kind named HDRcreme (JAN11/2008).

Happy imaging!

Wonderlost is a Raymond Sepulveda project based on is own interpretation (on a very noir kind of way) of Lewis Carroll characters. The most interesting aspect is achieved by the contrast between the white porcelain on the characters faces, the blood and the extreme black elements.

Also very interesting is the fact that the artist didn’t use any 3D software. All the artwork’s done with a mix of Illustrator and Photoshop and, of course, Raymond Sepulveda’s mastery of the airbrushing technique.

* A pictogram (also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a symbol representing a concept, object, activity, place or event by illustration. Pictography is a form of writing where by ideas are transmitted through drawing. It is a basis of cuneiform and, to some extent, hieroglyphs, which uses drawings also as phonetic letters or determinative rhymes.

The website that I want to introduce you to, is nothing more than an extraordinary source for pictograms. Tough pictogram’s existence (ruled by standards) is considered to as old as a hundred years, pictograms are as ancient as the first writting systems… maybe more!

Pictograms travelled trough time to our days and their importance have even been reinvigorated by the digital era (icons, emoticons, etc.). They’ve evolved mostly on the easy and almost automatic fashion in which they’re absoved by human brain and on they’re universal meaning.

They’re present on our everyday life, they’re of extreme importance on modern societies but we don’t even notice them. Take 5 minutes, pay a visit to Sclera Picto’s e try to understand how difficult our life would be without these simple but expressive images.

On a more relaxed reference, pay a visit to Poptogramas, the Pop Pictograms created by Daniel Motta (2005). Is worth the visit!

Happy images.

* Pictogram, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pictogram&oldid=188802830 (last visited Feb 2, 2008).

HDRcreme is a great HDRi (High Dinamic Range Imaging) photo gallery website that allows users to share HDR photos, get a start on the subject and/or share knowledge with other users. The website can also be seen has a great image hosting service. There’s also a voting and commenting system available. Because HDRi is a yet-to-be-popular subject I want to list some of the websites that for sure you’ll get you interested on this subject.

If you know any additional resource that may useful for other users, please let me know by commenting on this post.

Additional Resources:

- Chromasia (exceptional HDR photo gallery)
- John Miles Gallery
- Vanilla Days (about 150 HDR photos)
- HDR Japan (fantastic HDR photo site about Japan)
- HDR Tutorial (using Photomatix)
- Several HDRi tutorials
- HDR on Flickr (a bit of everything, quality speaking)

Invitr is self-described as the only feature that Flickr still lacks so it can achieve perfection. Invitr allows you to specify one (or more) private pictures to be shown to as many/little people as you want. Think of an extension of the Public, Friends, Family and Private status. All you have to do is login into your Flickr account and allow the Invitr connection. After that, simply select the photos you’d wish to share and fill out the email address field. Set the expiry date and the person you specified will receive an email with a unique link to view the selected photos.

Just don’t forget that though URL sent to each e-mail address is a unique URL there’s no guarantee that the same address won’t be distributed by the email recipient, transforming a private photo in a…public one.

Happy sharing.

Additional Information:
- Alexa Ranking: 1.047.662
- Del.icio.us index: 89

Wallpapermaker is a free service you can use to produce your very own and personalized wallpapers trough an extremely easy to use interface and without the need of any additional graphical application. You can use several backgrounds, ornaments and hilarious characters like Homer Simpson or David Beckham.

Though interesting enough for anyone to try, Wallpapermaker presents itself shorter than it should. By not permitting users to add their own images or any other object, the service is too restrictive for my personal taste and probably for yours. Still, I insist, interesting enough to give it a try. Compatibility issues with some IE versions may also be in the list of reasons that will transform Wallpapermaker in an even more ephemeral success.

Happy creations.

Additional Information:
- Alexa Ranking: 363.271
- Del.icio.us index: 28