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Image sizes: 256x256, 64x64, 48x48, 32x32, 24x24, 20x20, 16x16, 512x512 File formats: BMP, GIF, PNG, ICO ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Creating Images with Aqua EffectDesigning a fresh new icon having the familiar "aqua" effect is easier than you think – if you have proper tools. You can design an icon from scratch by only using a free, small and lightweight icon editor.Designing a fresh new image having the renowned "aqua" effect is easier than you think – if you use proper tools. To create an image from scratch, a professional, small and simple icon editor such as IconLover 5 (aha-soft.com) is all you really need. For example, let us make an aqua-style icon to represent "Add", a glass ball with a "plus" sign in it. First, you’ll need to draw a circle of a chosen color. Pick the color from the Color properties menu. Just so you know, you can always memorize a color by adding it to Custom Colors; this comes really handy if you need to draw a matching set of images. With the Transparency bar or one of the Transparency presets, define your new icon’s transparency. For this tutorial, the ball will be fully opaque. In the same way, you can set background color; for simplicity’s sake, we’ll keep the background transparent for now. To make a circle of selected color, select the Filled Ellipse tool by clicking the Filled Ellipse icon in the Tools menu, which is on the left of the drawing area. Holding the left mouse button down, move the mouse within the drawing area to draw an ellipse. The ellipse changes its size as you move the mouse. To create a perfectly round circle, hold Shift while drawing. That’s it, you have just painted a circle! To add volume and dimension to the flat circle, we’ll need to apply some special effects. There are tons of them built into IconLover! You can add shadows, gradients, transparency channels, and of course, the renowned ‘glass reflection’ look employed by the aqua effect. To draw an icon matching Apple’s Aqua style, you’ll need to add a reflection and a shadow to the circle. This can be done quite easily altogether by simply selecting Aqua from the Effects menu. Keep all sliders and values at their current positions for now, and you’ll get a beautiful shiny sphere as a result. Now let’s add an artist’s touch and make your icon truly unique. Go back to that Aqua dialog and have a look at the settings. There are multiple settings available to tweak, allowing you to design something never seen before. Go ahead and tweak the sliders to see how your icon can look! As a final touch, let’s add some volume to your newly created icon. While glowing and shiny, it still looks more like a lens rather than a crystal ball. Let’s fix that by throwing a drop-down shadow! To add a shadow effect to the icon, click "Drop shadow" from the Effects menu. You can stick to defaults, or tweak the values around by getting a flat button, a lens, or a ball. It all depends on the size of the shadow, its distance from the subject, and the angle at which it falls to the ground. To add the ‘plus’ sign into the image, click on the Text tool icon in the left Tools menu or press "T" to get the text properties window. Make sure the "Image transparency" box is ticked. This means that your text will not be transparent, only the area around it will be. Adjusting the "Use semi-transparency" setting gets your text the same level of transparency your primary color has. Type "+", and you’ll get the ‘plus’ sign inserted into the ball. Voila! You’ve just drawn a crystal ball that matches the famous Aqua style! All you needed was a professional icon editor, IconLover 5, a few mouse clicks and a few minutes of your time. Easy! ![]()
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