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Free Icon Samples for Axialis IconWorkshop™

Copyright ©2007 Axialis Software - All Rights Reserved

Description

The icons included in this folder are provided to illustrate some tutorials on how to batch create icons from several images.

They are provided for demonstration purpose but can be freely used as long as you respect the following terms: (a) the icons remains the property of Axialis Software; (b) you can use them without royalties to create icons for any purpose as long as you purchase Axialis IconWorkshop (see Axialis IconWorkshop user agreement to choose between Personal and Corporate editions); (c) if you convert these icons into images to use on a website, add the following HTML tag at the bottom of your page: "<a href="http://www.axialis.com/icons/">Icons</a> by <a href="http://www.axialis.com">Axialis Software</a>"

How to Create Several Icons from Images in One Step?

A powerful feature permits to automate the creation of several icons from a group of images. Each image will be used to produce one icon with several formats embedded. This automated operation is called a "Batch" feature. Several batch features are included in IconWorkshop. It permits to greatly increase productivity especially if you deal with numerous icons in your daily work. We'll see one of them but we strongly recommend you to test all of them to get a better idea of the power of IconWorkshop. We'll start with a set of 18 images in 256x256 JPEG2000 format. We'll create the 9 first icons in Windows® format and the 9 others in Macintosh® format.

Opening the folder containing the image in the Axialis Explorer

IconWorkshop, like all the Axialis products, contains a built-in file explorer that permits to do all kinds of operations on files associated with the application. We use to call this file explorer "Axialis Media File Explorer". It looks like the Windows® explorer, has different views including a great thumbnail mode with fast preview and permits various operations on files like copy/move/rename...

All the batch functions are available from the Axialis Explorer window. That's the reason why we'll start this lesson by opening the folder which contains the images in this explorer, even if those files are located in the Librarian.

1. First, you must be sure the librarian is visible. If the librarian window is not visible, check the Librarian button in the main toolbar or press ESC.

2. Select the folder "Media Files/Images/Rounded Buttons". In the thumbnail preview list, you see all the files included in the folder.

3. Right-click in the librarian tree, a menu opens. Choose the command "Open Folder in Explorer". A new Explorer window opens in the working area and the folder contents is automatically displayed. You see all the images displayed in thumbnail mode with preview. If this is not the case, be sure to select in menu: "Explorer/Display/Large Icons" and "Explorer/Display/Auto Preview".

Creating the Windows® icons

4. In the Explorer window, select the 9 first images in the list. To do this, click on the first image, press the SHIFT key (keep it pressed) and click on the 10th image. The 9 images are selected.

5. Right-click on one of the selected images, a menu opens. Select the command "Batch Create Windows® Icons from Selection...".

6. A dialog box opens. In "Standard Image Formats" and "Extra Image Formats" choose the image formats you wish to add in the icons.

7. In Image Adjustment group, you can add a smooth or sharp filter to the image shrinking process. You can also use or not a dithering method to render image using 256 or 16 colors. In Transparency group, an option permits to use opaque images (i.e. without transparency) and specify a color to make transparent.

8. When done click OK. All the icons are created and added to the same folder. Names are preserved, only the extension is changed to ICO. The Librarian is updated accordingly since this is the same folder.

9. Let's take a look at a newly created icon. Double-click on the first created icon which is named "Cancel.ico". A document window opens as shown above with all the image formats available. When you've checked all the formats, close this window.

Creating the Macintosh ® icons

10. In the Explorer window, select the 9 last images in the list. Use the same method as above.

11. When the images are selected, Right-click on one of them, a menu opens. Select the command "Batch Create Macintosh® Icons from Selection...".

12. A dialog box opens. First we need to choose the Macintosh® file format we wish to use (there are 3 formats supported by IconWorkshop - see this topic to learn more). Choose "MacBinary Icon (BIN)".

13. In groups "Standard Image Formats" and "Extra Image Formats" choose the image formats you wish to add in the icons. The other options are the same as above.

14. When done click OK. All the Macintosh® icons are created and added to the same folder. Names are preserved, only the extension is changed to BIN. The Librarian is updated accordingly since this is the same folder.

15. Let's take a look at a newly created icon. Double-click on a Macintosh® icon, for example "Rss.bin". A document window opens as shown above with all the image formats available. When you've checked all the formats, close this window.