IconCool Studio 5 - Not So Cool Without A Necessary Feature

$39.95 seems like a reasonable price for what you’ll get out of a software app like IconCool Studio 5. My website uses lots of little icons, and I’ve spent many hours over the years using Paint to see if I could make a good icon.

What I mostly found was that making good-looking icons, like any art, is best done by artists. I'm not a good enough one to be satisfied with my work. That's where IconCool comes in. With it as my personal artist's assistant, we can do it now!

You can make graphics images in free software such as Microsoft Paint or Paint.net. You can use the popular and free IrfanView to save images as ICO files. And Windows typically can use BMP files for icons--what more do you get out of Icon Cool to be worth $39.95? After using it for this review, I have to conclude that you don't get enough. If you’re serious about making cool new larger icons, get something like IconCool Studio 5 Pro with IconCool Mixer at the $59.95 level (I can't fully recommend it as I didn't review that version).

More and more, I’m seeing software where, even after purchase, one of its main features is an advertisement for the program the next step up. When you press the Mixer button in the registered version of Icon Cool Studio 5.25, you find that you've purchased a pop-up ad. The extra $20 gets the price over what I think is reasonable. Beyond that, it paints the perspective of the basic app being one that isn't worth the $39.95. I can continue making icons with free tools. Maybe it's there and I don't see it--an option to pay the extra $20 for added Mixer feature, after having already purchased the basic app.

IconCool provides a nice dynamic real-time interactive previewing environment to prep an image to be used for an icon, and for working on an icon design. There are lots of effects and filters to pick from, with settings that make for infinite possibilities.

The interface is complex enough that you should plan on some orientation, starting with learning the difference between working with an image file and an icon. If you start with an existing image, such as a JPG file from your camera, use the File -> Import feature from the main menu. That gets the image into an image prepping window (see image), the first step toward the icon working window.

When you've got the picture ready to make an icon from, click the Import Now button (see image). IconCool will create the first draft of the new icons; not just one icon, but as many different sized ones as you've selected.

The File -> Open command is used to open an existing icon file, not an images to be made into an icon. Icons themselves are the project files when you're making an icon. Be careful not to mix the already working icons you're using with the new ones you're making. The interface works well after you learn it a bit.

Free sample icons are available to registered users. IconCool's tech support responded reasonably quickly to my three emailed support requests during the review.

Here’s a scenario: You're in Photoshop working with a picture, and get inspired to make an icon. Use the menu In Photoshop -> Filter -> IconCool -> Transfer to IconCool Studio. IconCool opens and the picture is in it, ready to use for icon making.

Working in IconCool, you can use File -> "Send current image to Photoshop...." With Photoshop open, it's lightning quick, going into it as a PNG file.

Vista takes icons to new levels of graphic design, with features such as lighting effects and shadowing needed to effectively develop them. IconCool supports them.

I like the icon window with its ability to work with the various-sized icons--and save it to several icon files at once.

Scrollbars come and go as you view or hide various panels. I had some difficulties getting to a scroll bar when I needed it most, when I was ready to click that all-important "Import Now" button to move the image into the icon-making window.

The minimize, maximize, and close options in the upper right corner are not always there when working on an image before importing (see image).

Drag/drop capability works when bringing an icon file in from a file manager, but not an image file to prep for an icon. Copy/paste features from a file manager don't work for either.

The Ani Editor (for animated cursors) is fun, but can be a real chore to use:

• When changing the time duration of a frame, you adjust it 1/100 of a second at a time, and each change requires pressing the up or down arrow lots of times. You can't type the desired number into what looks like an entry field, and you can't hold down the up/down button to have it scroll quickly through the numbers. Nope, you have to click the button for each incremental change.
• The duration setting applies only to the selected frame. You can't select multiple frames and change the time duration for them all. You can copy and paste one frame to another position, but the frame properties that are copied don't include duration. It's back to toggling the setting one at a time.
• After saving an ani project, reopening it shows that the duration of each frame returns to the default of 10/100 of a second.

The lack of the Mixer feature, combined with the linkage to Photoshop, bothers me. Could it be that Photoshop is really the part that's needed to make the most sophisticated icons?

The feature for applying text leaves much to be desired. For example:

• The picklist doesn't have a locator; you can't type the letter "t" and get to the fonts that start with that letter. The list always starts with the default settings for font, size and text of IconCool Studio. It would be better if the program remembered the last settings and started with them.
• I'd opt for angled test, like at 13 degrees, and IconCool Studio added the text to the upper left corner. But with the angle, the upper left part of the letters went offscreen. Moving the text didn't bring back the missing parts.

At one time, when playing with color selections, the app crashed.  IconCool didn't work well again until I rebooted the system, a Vista laptop.