Axialis IconWorkshop - Icon Authoring Tool

Features in Depth

Make hi-quality icons for all platforms: Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, Linux

With IconWorkshop make your own icons for all operating systems. You can create icons for Windows icons up to 768x768 for Windows 10 and MacOS icons up to 1024x1024 for OSX 10.11 El Capitan. Unix/Linux, Android & iOS use PNG images as icons. IconWorkshop creates PNG images with alpha channel in a few clicks including from existing Windows and Mac icons.

The new generation of icons uses variable transparency (alpha channel). This alpha transparency permits creating beautiful icons with smooth borders and shadows. IconWorkshop, which fully support alpha transparency, is the professional tool you need to create such icons.

IconWorkshop was designed with one goal in mind: "Icon Quality". The powerful editor permits creating the various image formats from an original drawing without quality loss.

Work in a fully Integrated Workspace

IconWorkshop™ features a fully integrated workspace. Some icon tools available on the market are made of several programs resulting in applications which are difficult to use. In IconWorkshop™, all features are available on screen. This interface lets you be more productive than ever.

All the tools are easily available on screen. The application fully supports mouse drag & drop allowing easy and intuitive operations like creating composite icons from several images.

The interface is compatible with hi-DPI retina screens (200% scale or more). The interface is automatically adjusted to match the high pixel density resulting in a visual comfort never met before.

Full support for Windows Vista/7/8/10 PNG-compressed icons

IconWorkshop™ loads, creates, edits, saves icons for Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10. These operating systems use the ICO format conataining PNG-compressed images formats. It permits creating icons up to 768x768 with alpha channel with smaller file size.

Axialis IconWorkshop™ fully supports this new format in all features: edition, automatic format creation, batch creation, batch conversion, format normalization. Don't wait and create today your icons for all version of Windows up to 10.

• Introducing Windows icons
• How to create Windows icons with IconWorkshop

Make icons for smartphones: iPhone OS, Android, Windows Phone

Recent smartphones and other media pocket devices defines new standards in application development. Their operating systems have advanced multi-touch interface that brings the user experience to a new level of ergonomics. In this environment, icons have an important role to play to let the user work intuitively.

Android, iPhone OS and Windows Phone operating systems define new standards for icons. IconWorkshop lets you create in minutes icons following the specifications of those operating systems.

Using image objects, create icons for your phone applications in a few drag & drops (see object packs: iPhone Applications and iPhone Tab Bar Icons).

Compatible with Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator

You can import PSD images with layers from Photoshop® and easily create a multi-resolution icon from a program or company logo.

The product includes Plug-ins for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Once installed, the plug-ins will let you transfer images directly from your Adobe application to IconWorkshop without saving a temporary file. The following applications are supported:

• Adobe Photoshop CS4, CS5, CS6 (32 and 64 bits)
• Adobe Photoshop CC, CC 2014, CC 2015 (32 and 64 bits)
• Adobe Illustrator CS4, CS5, CS6 (32 and 64 bits)
• Adobe Illustrator CC, CC 2014, CC 2015 (32 and 64 bits)

Make pixel-perfect icons using Photoshop Templates

With 15 ready-to-use Photoshop templates, create your icons like a professional icon designer. Use the powerful drawing tools of Photoshop to create the different formats and export the whole artwork in IconWorkshop. The icon is automatically created in seconds with all its formats. You can even create your own templates.

Draw your icon in in Photoshop using the Template. For each image format you have a specific drawing zone. Once transferred in IconWorkshop, the icon is automatically created with pixel-perfect quality.

Work faster with Plug-ins for Visual Studio 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012

Axialis IconWorkshop includes a handy feature which permits working faster with Visual Studio®. The principle of this add-in, as we've made it, is to create a direct bridge between the VS IDE and IconWorkshop.

The plug-in permits to easily edit in IconWorkshop an icon included in a solution. Just open the icon in the Visual Studio® resource editor and launch the associated plug-in command. The icon is automatically opened in IconWorkshop and you can work on it as necessary. When you save it in IconWorkshop, the VS IDE automatically refreshes the icon document.

• Introducing the Visual Studio® plug-in
• Modifying an icon in a Visual Studio solution using the plug-in

Create, edit icons in Image Strips for toolbars

Axialis IconWorkshop is the only icon editor to create and edit Image Strips for toolbars. If you're a developer, don't struggle with wide bitmaps anymore! Just open them in IconWorkshop and edit each icon separately.

It can read all kinds of Image Strips in BMP and PNG. Transparency is supported in 32 BPP images through Alpha channels and in 24 BPP or less images through a fixed background color.

Icons in image strips can be added, copied, moved and removed. You can also create new image strips from ready-to-use image objects in a few drag & drops. The object pack "Lite Toolbars" permits creating sharp and crisp icons for toolbars.

• What is an Image Strip?
• How to create Icons for Toolbars using Image Strips

Create, Edit Bitmap Images

Axialis IconWorkshop™ also permits creating or modifying bitmap images. Transparency is supported in 32 BPP images using Alpha channels and in 24 BPP or less images through a fixed background color.

This feature is useful to create illustration images for applications or web sites. You can also open and convert images to different formats such as GIF and JPEG with web optimization features. Many image file formats are supported:

Create attractive icons using Image Objects

The use of image objects to create icons is an exclusive feature of IconWorkshop. It permits creating professional-looking icons in minutes using a few mouse drag & drops.

The principle is quite simple: A large quantity of basic image objects are provided in a library. By associating them together (on top of each other) you create a custom icon:

The images objects, which have been made by professional designers, are provided in 256x256 high-quality PNG format. This permits you to easily create icons containing various sizes up to 256x256 for Windows® XP, Windows Vista™, 7, 8, 10 and Mac OS®. Read the following articles if you want to learn more:

• What is an image object?
• How to use image objects to create icons?

Convert icons between MacOS; and Windows

Mac OS® designers are prolific, especially when it comes to create icons. Use IconWorkshop™ to read MacOS icons and convert them to Windows®. It reads all kinds of Macintosh® icons up to OSX 10.11 El Capitan.

As a software developer, you'll enjoy the ability to create applications for both Windows (ICO, PNG) and MacOS platforms (ICNS, RSC, BIN) by converting your icons. If you're a Windows user you'll be able to display MacOS icons on your Windows desktop.

In addition, IconWorkshop™ includes a feature which converts icons between the two systems in batch-processing mode (several icons are converted in one single operation).

Automatically create icons from images

Axialis IconWorkshop™ features a powerful editor. But sometimes it's easier to create an icon from an existing image. You can import various file formats, such as PSD, PNG, BMP, SVG, JPEG, GIF, JPEG2000...

An exclusive feature permits creating an icon with its several image formats in just one operation! All is done automatically: Alpha channel is preserved, palettes are calculated for 256 color formats and even 16 color formats with transparency are generated:

Learn using a Comprehensive Help

We have created a professional and comprehensive help in IconWorkshop to permit you to learn all the features included in the product. Unlike other competitor tools, the help file describes more than the product features. It is amply illustrated and written in easy-to-read English. It includes following topics:

• General information on Windows and Mac OS icons, icon creation and use in software projects (4 topics).
• Getting started lessons (14 topics).
• How-to step-by-step tutorials (35 topics).
• Full feature reference (150+ topics).

Batch Procedures

Numerous batch procedures have been implemented in IconWorkshop™ to automatically perform operations on a large number of files. For example, you can create icons from a set of PNG files (ICO files are created). You can also automatically convert several icons between Macintosh and Windows OS in seconds.

Librarian & Explorer with previews

Use a powerful librarian to easily manage all your media and icon files. This is an integrated window (which can be hidden) where you can store, move, copy and extract all the files you're using in your work (images, icons, libraries).

Also, A built-in file explorer permits to browse your disks and find files including images and all files containing icons. This advanced explorer permits to display files in thumbnail mode. By a simple click you open any file in a viewer or editor window