IconBuilder 8.5.1
The Iconfactory
Price: $79 (free trial)
Pros: Leverages the muscle of Photoshop for professional icon building, produces
Cons: Complicated plug-in interface has a learning curve
by Gerrit Dalman, Capt, USAF
Have you ever wanted to unleash your creativity on your desktop? Perhaps you've made a desktop picture that took a little more thought than, what cool picture of my dog can I put behind my windows? With IconBuilder and a copy of Photoshop, you can make your very own icons for use in all versions of the Mac OS and even Windows.
IconBuilder is not a stand-alone application, but a powerful Photoshop plug-in. That does set the bar for entry pretty high, but it also means you can leverage the most powerful image editing tools on the market for making your creations pixel-perfect.
Obviously you'll already have to be familiar with the basics of editing in Photoshop. That's actually good because you probably won't be intimidated by the somewhat cumbersome interface of the plug-in. Before you even open it, I strongly recommend reading some of the included documentation. The quick start guide will give you a quick introduction to 90% of the functionality.
That's because most of what you'll probably want to do can be done rather quickly with an included template. All you really need to do is prepare your artwork, copy it into the template, and then run the plug-in or one of the included actions.
Once you've got the hang of it, you may find yourself creating custom icons for all your documents and folders (though that's less useful with Leopard's new preview icons). If you're looking to find a wider audience for your masterpiece, you can even export versions for Windows, the Classic Mac OS, or website favorites badges.
Though the results may seems simple, there's a lot that goes in to a quality finished icon. Fortunately, IconBuilder can check your work. The included "verify" tab will alert you to any problems or short-comings so your finished product will look great however you use it.
Of course IconBuilder certainly isn't for everyone. If you've got one or two graphics that you would like to turn into sophisticated custom icons for your desktop, give it a spin, but you're not likely to get regular use out of it unless you're actually producing icon packs regularly.
If you do, though, this is the tool for you. As a reminder, once you've completed your pride and joy, be sure to share it with the community. If it has a military flare we'd be happy to host it on the MMAUG web page, but at least submit it to a site like InterfaceLIFT.com.
System Requirements:
* Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later
* Compatible editor:
* Photoshop 7 or later
* Photoshop Elements 2 or later
* Macromedia Fireworks