Icon help
Friday, September 17, 2004 by Richard Mohler | Discussion: Stardock Software
I've never made an icon before but I want to see if I can. I just want to make a simple icon for my desktop widgets. I went ahead and got the free version of icon developer, but when I make an icon out of an image I made, it always comes out jagged and blurry. Am I missing something or what. Any suggestions?
Richard Mohler
Reply #2 Friday, September 17, 2004 1:56 PM
Reply #2 Friday, September 17, 2004 1:56 PM
Just a small red button png format anti-aliasing on when I made it. I think it is 32x30. Just used create from image file. And by the way thank's for your help. I've never tried making an icon before so any help, will help. Image looks fine before I use icon developer. Don't know what I'm doing wrong but it's definitely not right..
Koasati
Reply #3 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:05 PM
Reply #3 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:05 PM
First thing..... the canvas for your original image should be the same width and height. 32x32, 48x48, etc.... What size icon are you trying to create? If 32x32 then you're ok, but if you're trying to create a large icon, your image needs to be at least as large.
Koasati
Reply #4 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:12 PM
Reply #4 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:12 PM
What is this button icon for? How are you going to use it? (I have a reason for asking)
Richard Mohler
Reply #5 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:26 PM
Reply #5 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:26 PM
Just a simple shutdown windows button.( just for practice) I was trying to see if I could make an icon for it instead of using default desktop x icon.. It seems like when I don't start off with a png that's background is transparent they look better.
Koasati
Reply #6 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:35 PM
Reply #6 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:35 PM
You can use the png image in DX, it doesn't have to an ico. But if you want to figure where it's going wonky, you're going to have to get specific about what you're doing. If the image looks fine before you convert it, then something is going wrong in ID, but without details, I'm just guessing. 
Richard Mohler
Reply #7 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:49 PM
Reply #7 Friday, September 17, 2004 2:49 PM
I dont know how specific you mean but anyway, I open icon developer and choose new image from file, then I choose my image which is saved as bmp, and it makes it in to alot of different size icon's, then I delete all the sizes except the one I want. I started with a 32x32 image so I chose 32x32 icon. The constrain proportions and resample image I don't really know what they mean, anyway I save it as an ico file and when I save desktop x image as widget and check apply application icon and choose it, and it makes a widget and when I look at it, the icon doesn't look right
Koasati
Reply #8 Friday, September 17, 2004 3:04 PM
[Message Edited]
Reply #8 Friday, September 17, 2004 3:04 PM
| Just a small red button png format |
| my image which is saved as bmp |
err... you need to save as a transparent PNG. This is probably where it's going south on you.
Constrain proportion would be for dealing with an irregular sized image. If the iamage was 100x50, and you didn't check the Constrain proportions box, it would distorted the image, because ico files are always square. Resample is the filtering used to resize the images for the different sizes. You can leave it at default.
[Message Edited]
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Reply #1 Friday, September 17, 2004 1:45 PM
Obviously, yes........... but what you're missing is impossible to say, until you provide details. The image you're trying to convert.... what's the format? What size is it? Did you use anti-aliasing? What method are you using in IconDeveloper? The more info your provide, the easier it will be to help you.