I recently came across some minimalist portraits of cultural icons by Israeli illustrator Noma Bar. I was immediately drawn to these pieces for their brilliant use of negative space, elegant subtlety, as well as Bar’s use of an object or symbol embedded in the design that helps identify the subject. (I especially love Bill Murray’s!)

Can you guess them all?

All these illustrations, and many more, can be found in the book Guess Who?: The Many Faces of Noma Bar.

Via Brain Pickings.

Welcome to today’s installment of Cool Tool Tuesdays, where I feature a favorite item from my life and spotlight it so that others who are not familiar with the product may also benefit from it. A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, hardware, material, or website that I have personally tried and love.

Do you have any questions about today’s cool tool? Would you like an item featured in the future? Please leave a comment to this post, or send me a message via my contact form. Enjoy!

If you are a regular Photoshop user, you are probably familiar with Photoshop Actions.

If you have no idea what Photoshop Actions are, go read “What Are Photoshop Actions?” over at the MCP Photography Blog. You can also check out this FAQ at Totally Rad for more information, instructions, and tips on installing and using actions.

Now that we’re set on that, let’s move on to today’s Cool Tool: MCP Actions’ Free Facebook Fix Photoshop Actions!

This FREE set of actions for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements includes 11 actions to resize, sharpen, watermark, and brand your photos. Why does it include Facebook in its name? Because this set is created with Facebook in mind by not only resizing the photos to Facebook’s 960px-wide gallery interface, but it also converts your photo’s color profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1, which optimizes your picture’s colors for the web.

The Free Facebook Fix Photoshop Actions also include one of the best sharpening actions I’ve come across. Take a look at the following picture of Aerin, before I ran the Free Facebook Fix Photoshop Action and after:

The difference is subtle, but noticeable. (Click on the image to see the full version.) The effect is remarkably evident in the eyes — the sharpening action creates a bright and alert look to practically every pair of eyes I’ve run it through.

MCP also offers the sharpening action by itself, called Free High Definition Sharpening Photoshop Actions. I use these as the final step in almost all my pictures, and I know that many professional photographers do too!

Be sure to check out the rest of MCP’s amazing actions. While most of the sets are $30 and up (the whole shebang is $1085 ), many amazing sets can be downloaded for free here.

And, as referenced above, Totally Rad is another company that offers amazing Photoshop Actions. I’m so glad I purchased TRA1 and TRA2 when I was still working full-time and had the money to spend, because I use their actions on almost all of my pictures too.

Don’t have Photoshop? Both MCP and Totally Rad offer Lightroom Preset versions of their Photoshop Actions, and many of my photographer friends prefer Lightroom to Photoshop. And while Photoshop Elements is not quite as powerful as Photoshop itself, it has most of the tools that non-professionals require — not to mention that it is a steal (at least compared to regular Photoshop) at $79.

You can also find hundreds of FREE and amazing Photoshop Actions just by searching for them. If you are not sure where to start, here’s an article called “The Ultimate Collection of Useful Photoshop Actions” which showcases more than 350 actions that are handpicked by Smashing Magazine.

Enjoy, and action away!

In preparation for Superbowl XLVI, Christian comedian Tim Hawkins has created this official handbook of worship signals…non-denominational, of course.  I’m sure all my Christian readers — in addition to anyone else who have witnessed passionate Christian worship — will appreciate this with a big laugh.

Are you suffering from a case of the Mondays? Well, I’ve got good news for you, because this week I’m offering an exciting giveaway from Next Day Flyers!

Next Day Flyers is an online printing company that delivers top-quality printed marketing materials with one of the fastest turnaround times in the industry. Their printing procedure is environmentally friendly with the use of recycled materials and waste-reducing processes. All print jobs are subjected to a 33 quality checkpoints before being shipped, and their Online Design Center ensures that designing, and ordering print jobs are as easy and painless as possible.

Next Day Flyers has operated out of Los Angeles for the past 13 years, but they recently opened a new printing facility in New Jersey which means that not only can customers take advantage of the dual-coast time zones with extended business hours, they can also benefit from faster printing and lower shipping costs.

To celebrate the opening of their new, solar-powered facility, Next Day Flyers has graciously offered to give one of my readers a FREE set of 500 business cards! The cards can be printed in full color on both sides, on 14PT ultra-thick cardstock with a UV or matte coating. Next Day Flyers has also offered the winner of this giveaway free shipping within the United States.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to use business cards just for business purposes! You can use this credit to print coupons, save-the-dates, appointment cards, or even mini greeting cards. Since Next Day Flyers allows you to upload your own design, the possibilities are endless.

To enter this giveaway, simply use the Rafflecopter widget below. Not sure how to use Rafflecopter? Watch this 45 second video for a tutorial on how to enter a giveaway using Rafflecopter. There are 5 methods of entry, with the first method (commenting on this blog post) being mandatory while the third method (Tweeting about the giveaway) can be used once per day:

This giveaway will end on Friday, February 3rd, 2012, at 11:59pm, at which point a winner will be randomly chosen and announced here.

Please use a valid email address and/or Twitter handle so that I can contact you if you win!

Sorry, this giveaway is open only to residents of the United States.

Good luck, and thanks for entering!

A good illustrator can capture the essence of a person or a character without having to make the illustration look exactly like the person it is based on. And this is precisely what Anna Rettberg has done in the following illustrated mashup of popular television characters from various shows.

Check them out — isn’t it amazing how these characters can be immediately recognized with the use of one prop, a certain pose, and/or facial expression?

That, or I watch wayyyy too much TV.

Can you recognize them all? I will post the answers as the first comment to this post!