You could load an image up in Photoshop, reduce the color depth and fiddle with the pixel diffusion slider a bit. Or you could get Pixatool, a brilliant app completely dedicated to tuning pixelated images to the finest and most authentic details. Line and contrasts are rendered so well there's often an uncanny suggestion of hand-drawing, and the dithering smokes what mainstream painting apps offer.
It's $30, with a free-of-charge demo version. There's more examples. Artists are sharing their work with the #pixatool hashtag.



Update: check out the new version.
Legendary designer Dieter Rams lays out the ten principles underlying his approach to “good design.” A scene from “Rams”, Gary Hustwit’s new documentary about legendary designer Dieter Rams, with original music by Brian Eno. Motion graphics by Trollback & Co.
Kyiv-based sculptor Polina Verbytska (AKA WeirdSculpture) is a prolific and grotesque maker whose jewelry and knickknacks are superb and grody, all the teeth especially: rings, necklaces, earplugs, etc, and then the rest of it, like these severed fingertip hairpins.
African artist Laetitia Ky, 22, transforms her hair into fantastic sculptures as a hirsute form of socially-conscious art and, sometimes, just for fun. From CNN: In the Ivory Coast of her childhood, “the norm was to straighten your hair. So when I found the natural movement, I was fascinated. That’s when my hair became important […]
Use a single password for every website, and you’re compromising your security. Use a different one each time, and you’re bound to lose track of them. The solution? RoboForm Everywhere, a catch-all tool that will not only manage the passwords on every site you visit but generate better ones. As a simple password database, it’s […]
Just a reminder: Print isn’t dead. And now that printers are becoming as portable as cell phones, it might be around for quite some time. Enter the MEMOBIRD Mobile Thermal Printer, a mini-printer that is versatile, portable – and most importantly, never needs a refill on ink or toner. Measuring just a few inches around, […]
What do Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google all have in common? Somewhere in their framework, they all use MySQL, that most versatile (and free!) of database management systems. And they’re not alone. If your company or the one you’d like to work for wrangles data (and who doesn’t?), they’re going to need someone with a […]