Improved Icon!

[podperson]

I'd love to see an improved icon for Photoline. Currently I simply paste this icon from iconfactory.com over Photoline's icon, but really a great image editing program like Photoline deserves a better icon...

http://iconfactory.com/freeware/preview/agap

Any thoughts?

[lutz]

Hello Tonio,

I definitely like it. It has a certain understatement charme.
Great idea.

[podperson]

Removed the UI rant and placed in its own thread.

[podperson]

Here's a tweaked version at 512x512 (so it's good to go for insane Leopard icon sizes). I've checked it at resolutions down to 16x16 and it still looks OK to me.

[lutz]

Hey, one can certainly not complain about a real professional design. Wow !

[Loadus]

Nice work!
However, there's a nice basic guide in graphics design - don't use black, white, or gray. Adding anykind of tonality into your icons would give them that little "extra spark" - but they are great as they are now.

[podperson]

don't use black, white, or gray

Sorry, I have to disagree. So does iconfactory.com, Apple Computer, and Coco Chanel

I do think the icon could use more color (see the Core Image version in another thread).

[Loadus]

don't use black, white, or gray

Sorry, I have to disagree. So does iconfactory.com, Apple Computer, and Coco Chanel

Heh. Well it is just a guide, not a rule. But you live and you learn.

[podperson]

It's bad to make a completely greyscale icon because under the Apple UI guidelines that makes it a system utility. But many icons use greyscale components with a splash of color (such as Safari). If you reduce the icon I've provided to small sizes, the blue is still quite apparent. (I think I'd change the blue to some more unusual color since blue is rather common in icons, although it does visually associate Photoline with Photoshop, which currently has a blue icon.)

[greenmorpher]

A blue icon can be a problem because screen wallpaper may be blue (Apple offers a number of blue options; many photographs of e.g. landscapes or seascapes, incorporate significant areas of blue. A multicoloured icon is best, with a few bold splashes, along with a clear shape that can be reduced to small sizes. A page or pages shape is not good -- there are too many of them on the Mac. I look at my dock and I can see Text Edit, Tables, PDFpen, and Preview. I have dumped other less important (to me) programs simply because they use a page symbol because at dock image size, the differentiating factor in their logo is too small for quick recognition.

I have a psychological background somewhat biased towards perception and information processing. That tells me that if I want quick recognition of something, it has to be differentiated from other stuff around it at the lowest processing level -- right at the mental buffer level. If we demand higher levels of processing, we are making it hard for people and that turns them off.

Cheers

Geoff

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09:29 AM, May 29, 2008

[podperson]

Again, Photoshop's icon is blue. Safari's icon is blue. Wallpapers can be any size.

I don't care if my icon is adopted or not. I would just like Photoline to have an icon that isn't embarrassing for an artists' tool.

[greenmorpher]

Hiya Poddy

Agreed; I rather thought I was simply seconding a motion that a little more colour could be added.

I am no fan of Apple's gray stuff.

Cheers, Geoff

Geoffrey Heard, Business Writer & Publisher

"Type & Layout: Are you communicating or just making pretty shapes" -- the secrets of how type can help you to sell or influence, now at the new low price of $29.95. See the book at http://www.worsleypress.com or Amazon.

[podperson]

Here's a more convenient version of the icon I posted some time ago -- along with a screenshot from Icon Composer showing how it looks all the way down to 16x16.

I'm still thinking about an icon designed around a tablet (e.g. Cintiq), which would be cool for version 16.

And no, letters in a box don't do anything for me.

[lutz]

Hello Podperson,

would you have an icon file I could use on Windows XP and 7?
Thanks in advance!

[OldRadioGuy]

I'd love to see an improved icon for Photoline. ....

Any thoughts?

Not meaning to criticize your creative icon proposal, but I like the current PL icon. I have over 50 icons in my popup taskbar on Windows 7. The PL icon is one of the easiest to spot, in part because it's a simple design, not cluttered with extraneous visual information that does not work well with a tiny graphic.

Bob