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 Date Icon |
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Add Date icon to cartImage sizes: 256x256, 64x64, 48x48, 32x32, 24x24, 16x16, 512x512
File formats: BMP, GIF, PNG, ICO
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Making Icon Images with Aqua Effect
Designing a brand-new image having the renowned "aqua" effect is easier than you think – if you use proper tools. You can create an image from scratch by only using a free, small and easy icon editor.Designing a fresh new image featuring 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 for "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 you want from the Color properties menu. Just so you know, you can always memorize a color by adding it to Custom Colors; this comes very handy if you need to draw a matching set of icons.
Using the Transparency bar or one of the Transparency presets, define your new image’s transparency. For this tutorial, the ball will be fully opaque. Similarly, you can specify background color; for simplicity’s sake, we’ll keep the background transparent for now.
To draw a circle of selected color, select the Filled Ellipse tool by clicking the Filled Ellipse button in the Tools menu, which is on the left of the drawing area. Holding the left mouse button down, move the mouse cursor within the drawing area to create an ellipse. The ellipse changes its size and shape 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 many of those built into IconLover! You can add shadows, gradients, transparency masks, 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 by simply selecting Aqua from the Effects menu. Just keep all sliders and values at their defaults for now, and you’ll get a beautiful shiny sphere as a result.
Now let’s have some fun and make your icon truly unique. Go back to that Aqua dialog and have a carefull look at the properties. There are multiple properties available to adjust, allowing you to draw 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 like a lens rather than a crystal ball. Let’s fix that by throwing a drop-down shadow! To apply a shadow effect to the icon, click "Drop shadow" from the Effects menu. You can stick to defaults, or move 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 surface.
To add the ‘plus’ sign into the icon, 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 checked. This box means that your text will not be transparent, only the area around it will be. Changing the "Use semi-transparency" setting assigns 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 designed 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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