(clicking on an image will take you to a full view of it, websites of creators are underneath their images)

Eby-Paidrick Designs

Bert Monroy

I-Evermind

*Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, it is intended to give a brief idea of what is possible, if you want a more complete overview, I suggest you try a google search like this: Photorealistic Illustrator

Favicons are so called because they were first used in IE 6 (I believe) and only applied to websites that you had saved in your favourites bar.

They used to be a cool way to make your site stand out, now they’re an essential way to keep up with the crowd.

The basics of favicons are simple really, your icon should be as simple as possible, (even mine probably needs dumbing down a little) The simpler your icon is, the easier it will be for people to notice it and recognise it when it’s only 16 pixels wide!

*most websites only use 1 or 2 letters for their icon as any more is impossible to read!*

So if your website doesn’t have a favicon, head over to the Favicon Generator. and upload any square image to have it turned into a favicon!

Essentially, this brilliant tool allows you to scan any image for color schemes, it then generates two sets of colors: ‘dull’ and ‘vibrant’ ok, so it’s not exactly feature-packed. It is however, rather useful for if you want to create a whole color scheme around an image. So, for example, you had a header image which you wanted to use as the basis for an entire site, well bingo!

The main draw-back is that you can’t use this tool with images on your hard-drive. So it involves uploading the pictures to the net, you can either do it to your own site, or, alternatively to Flickr, Photobucket or Imageshack

GIMP and Inkscape

If you’re familiar with the Linux operating system, then you will probably already know about these two programs. Although they are both available on Windows and Mac OS X, they are more well known as stars of the Linux pantheon. GIMP and Inkscape are free rivals to Photoshop and Illustrator, respectively.

GIMP boasts intuitive and powerful tools and controls, meaning it goes right in many places where Photoshop goes wrong. Unfortunately I can’t help but feel like it’s just a watered down version of Photoshop, not to mention that the amount of available online resources (brushes, etc) is abysmal. However, it’s probably still the best alternative by far. And since it’s free, and available on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, well, that’s a lot more than can be said for Photoshop! Also worth special mention is the ability to extend GIMP with various user created plug-ins, allowing for endless possibilities for customisation!

Inkscape also partly falls into the trap of trying to be too simple and easy. It is a very versatile vector program, and you can see some user’s creations Here So it’s clearly capable of some impressive stuff. It is however more prone to problems than Illustrator, and as can be seen on the support forums, Inkscape appears to be in ongoing development instead of a state of completion.

Also worth a mention is the aptly named Draw mostly because of it’s inclusion and integration with OpenOffice This makes it very useful, IF you happen to use OpenOffice, however, it’s not much use to the rest of us. Especially considering that it’s pretty run of the mill.

I would go on to review other programs, such as: DrawPlus but then why review the rest, when you’ve already done the best?

This site allows you to generate just about any stripe pattern in a matter of minutes, with a plethora of options, a preview window and even the option to generate a tartan pattern, it’s little wonder that this site is making a stir on the web.

It even has a brief tutorial on the bottom with how to add the stripes to your website.

As you probably already know, Flickr is a brilliant photo sharing community. It allows photographers to share their art with the world, and allows people like graphic designers to find that kitten picture to complete their design:

Airtight interactive

Probably the most minimalist, and one of the most attractive Flickr browsers you’ll find on the web.

You’re simply met with a white entry field and a button that says go, the rest is up to you.

Perhaps the best feature of this browser is the ‘wheel’ of related options around the outside. – this makes the airtight browser perfect for anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking for.

I wouldn’t say that this is the best Flick browser out there, but it is certainly one of the funnest and simplest.

Compfight

On pretty much the other end of the spectrum is this browser from Compfight. This is the browser I use when I want to find images to use for work, and websites. This is because of one helpful feature.

The Compfight browser has a little search option whish allows you to only search for images that are 100% free to use for any application. – Which is ideal for the working graphic designer, n’est-ce pas?

usability: 8 appearance: 7 practicality: 9

On the topic of creative commons, it would be unfair not to mention creativecommons.org.

This is a search engine which allows to you trawl a number of sites for content for commercial purposes, as well as just being a Flickr browser, it also searches Google, Yahoo and others too!

However, it’s worth mentioning that the whole thing is a little clumsy and bulky. It essentially just adds an extra search frame to the top of Flickr, meaning I only got 1 and 1/2 pictures on the screen before I had to scroll down.

usability: 6 appearance: 4 practicality: 8

Picture Sandbox

Picture Sandbox gets a mention simply for the sheer volume of images you can find, it allows you to search any one of 7 image sharing sites. However, it’s interface lets this site down. There are so many images on a page that it’s quite difficult to scan them all for something you might like, clicking on one brings it into a pop-up box, but for some images, this only makes it about 50% bigger. So get ready to squint if you want to use this!

usability: 5 appearance: 6 practicality: 6

Picitup

Picitup is perhaps the most innovative of all of the Flickr browsers and searchers. It doesn’t look very special, but it has an option which allows you to filter your results by faces, landscapes, products and color. For example: the search I have on the left has been filtered for the color green, so that all of the results have green as the primary color. Cool eh?

usability: 8 appearance: 7 practicality: 8

all in all, I would reccommend the Compfight browser to anyone looking for that perfect picture, it’s quick, easy and it gets the job done!

Now, go buy a kitten.

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