Here is a good tutorial for retouching and touching up poor source material for beauty: Photo Touchup. The tutorial shows each and every step. Have a look at the before and after shots:
I’m clearing out some bookmark tabs to a more permanent home. Here are two good texture resources:
textures.forrest.cz
www.texturebin.com
This flickr toy searches for individual letters and numbers, and will let you spell out words with them. Kewl: http://metaatem.net/words/
Here are some really nifty gizmos for playing with flickr: fd’s Flickr Toys.