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Sample Images for Axialis IconWorkshop™

Copyright ©2007 Axialis Software - All Rights Reserved

Description

The images included in this folder are provided to illustrate some tutorials on how to create icons from existing 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/free/icons/">Icons</a> by <a href="http://www.axialis.com">Axialis Software</a>"

How to Icons from Images?

An interesting feature of IconWorkshop is to create an icon from an existing file. Some image formats support 32 BPP alpha channel transparency which is very interesting to create hi-quality RGB/A images in icons. The following image formats are supported:

- BMP - Windows bitmap (32 BPP alpha channel transparency supported).
- PNG - Portable Network Graphic (32 BPP alpha channel transparency supported).
- PSD - Photoshop (32 BPP alpha channel transparency and layers supported).
- JP2 - JPEG 2000 (32 BPP alpha channel transparency supported).
- JPG - JPEG
- TGA - Targa
- GIF - Compuserve GIF
- Others - Various other formats supported: TIFF, PCD (PhotoCD), PIC (Apple PICT), PCX (Zsoft), WMF (Windows MetaFile)

Open the image file in IconWorkshop

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. Double-click on the image "Sphere.png" (for example). It opens in a document window. This is not an editor window, you cannot draw in this zone.

Create an icon from this image

3. Before proceeding, we recommend you to select the portion of image you whish to use to create your icon. If you leave too many transparent areas around your image, the visible part of your icon will be too small.

4. Select the portion of image: Use the selection tool (upper-left button of the tool palette) and select the portion of image you whish to use (do not cut the shadow if there is one around the object). When done, an animated dashed rectangle has been created.

5. When the selection is done, choose Image/Create Windows® Icon from Selection or press "I" or click the first command button in the local toolbar.

6. The dialog box New Windows® Icon From Image opens. In the Name group, enter the icon project name. Do not specify any extension.

7. In the Image Formats group, select the image formats you whish to add in the icon and unselect the unwanted images. Just click on the image preview to select/unselect.

8. In the Extra Formats group, select the optional image formats you whish to add in the icon. The new format 256x256 is used by Windows Vista™ only.

9. To get the best results possible, you can also apply a filter when resizing RGB/A images and a dithering option to the 256/16 color images (try and see the results in the preview images).

10. If you wish to start creating your icon with an unlisted format, click the Other Image Format button.

11. When done, click OK. The icon is automatically created with the various image formats you've selected.