Enlarging Desktop Icons

Published on September 26, 2005 By Suzy Kaploozie In Icons

Ok... I've gone through a few posts hoping to find the answer but I'm being terribly lazy (being that it's the first day of my 10 day vacation!).

Check this out - see if it makes sense - cause it sure as heck doesn't make sense to me.

In Windows resolution 800x600 (just as an example) the desktop icons are obviously larger than what I currently run (1280x1024). However, when I enlarge my icons from 32 up 5 pixels to 37, it distorts the .ico images and they look super blurry. I don't understand? What am I doing wrong? Is there any other way around this? I would love to have the icons on my desktop larger than they are default so I can enjoy these BEAUTIFUL icons our members have been using.

Suggestions greatly appreciated!!!!

-Suzy

Comments

47songs

on Sep 26, 2005

You can use IconX to enlarge them and also apply some effects like zoom, transparancy and drop shadows.

Download here:

Link

Bichur

on Sep 26, 2005

Use IconX
or if you want huge honking icons (static or animated) DesktopX

47songs

on Sep 26, 2005

You gotta be faster than that, Sir!

Suzy Kaploozie

on Sep 26, 2005

haha awesome thanks! I tried out the free public version and it hides my taskbar - I cant find anywhere in the options to *not* hide it. If I purchase it, will I be able to unhide it with the full version?

Bichur

on Sep 26, 2005

It'll hide the taskbar

I gotta learn to pay more attention.

You gotta be faster than that, Sir!

Trolls got stubby fingers...

Bichur

on Sep 26, 2005

I have it. My taskbar's not hidden.

icon kid

on Sep 28, 2005

"...when I enlarge my icons from 32 up 5 pixels to 37, it distorts the .ico images and they look super blurry."

It can't happen any other way because nobody makes 37-pixel icons, not even Microsoft. What many people still don't understand is that Windows desktop icon formats are not like vector images. Microsoft is planning to eventually turn their icons into vectors but that's still far off. What that means is that you have to select one of the standard sizes in your Appearance menu for icons in order to not get a degraded image. Even with selecting a standard size, the image quality for a given system icon or application icon is not guaranteed because the format sizes for either of these is not consistent -- some of the standard sizes and color depths may be altogether missing. Selecting a standard size such as 32, 48 of 64 (for instance) is your best bet for having an icon rendered properly. Selecting a size that lies in between these numbers (such as 37, or 42, or 55) guarantees that your icons will be rendered blurry. Windows allows you to set your icon size to whatever you want, but Microsoft Corporation does NOT explain to users that setting them to other sizes than the standards degrades icons. That's why I'm the icon kid, because I explain points about Windows icons that Microsoft either doesn't care about, or doesn't particularly want to become common knowledge.

"I don't understand? What am I doing wrong?"

Well, that should be pretty easy after the above explanation -- DON'T USE SIZE 37.

You can use an icon editor to enlarge an icon (or even a paint program to enlarge the original source image and then do a file conversion to ICO) but one thing you will never be able to do is replace image data that never existed initially. So you can take a 32-pixel image, for example, and double its dimensions to 64, but it will become blurred which can be slightly compensated for by using a "sharpening filter," but the only sure way to get a good-looking, larger rendition of the icon is to have an artist redraw the whole thing by hand using the original image as a template -- yes -- there are still things a graphic artist can do that software cannot do.

Bichur

on Sep 28, 2005

I tried out the free public version and it hides my taskbar - I cant find anywhere in the options to *not* hide it.

IconX? no place to indicate hide that I know of.
DesktopX? Free version? I don't know - in the paid I have the option in builder mode.
Some themes will set your taskbar to auto hide, some just hide it period but those usually have a taskbar in them.

Suzy Kaploozie

on Sep 29, 2005

Thank you for the explanation guys

I'm still having the same problem with IconX - lets wait and see what support says.

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