Photoshop plugin to create a picture out of 9 or more icons.

412 views17 repliesLast post: 2/21/2004
I use to have a plugin that would enable you to create CD art. What it did was take a picture in to Photoshop and it would create the same picture made out of icons. In other words the picture would look like a jigsaw puzzle. I need this to make a some art work for a CD.

Any Ideas where I can find this.

Thanks in advance
#1
Maybe you mean a photomosaic? Do a Google search. There are a few.
#2
No that is not it, I will try to explain. What this plug in does is, talke a picture lat say 300 X 300 and chop it up into icons so that you can build a picture on a cd in icon view.
#3
This is the part that has me baffled:

... chop it up into icons ...

What do you means into icons?

I can visualize making a single icon out of a picture, but making more than one icon out of a single image? Based on what criteria?

Make a 300 x 300 picture of what?

Sorry to be so dense, but I'm just not following you.
#4
I think you want individual file icons, each of which represents a tile of a much larger composite picture. I've seen this effect on some Apple CDs. You could create these from a uniformly sliced image in Photoshop or Imageready, and then using an icon utility to assign each tile to the customized icon for each file (specific to each OS).
#5
Yes Richard that is what I want to do but I used to have a plug in that did it one step. I just can't find it anywhere, but I have replaced my laptop.
#7
Dean,

Sorry, I saw your screen shot and still don't follow you. It seems also that I am not the only one having trouble understanding what you are attempting to describe.

Let my try asking you another way:

What do you mean "on a CD"? What do you mean by "CD art"?

If you just want to print something on the face of a CD, where does the "the same picture made out of icons" come in? What icons? Do you just want to print several icons on the CD?
#10
Dean,

I'm sorry...I'm confused. The software I suggested takes an image and makes Finder Icon Pictures which are typically used for creating a background of CD, folder or other container windows.

I thought that's what you were after. Oh well...
#11
Sorry Welles:

I had one of my staff looking at this, Iconizer is just what I need.

Sorry Again

Thanks

Dean
#12
Don't worry, you are not the only ones confused, I still can't figure what he wants...
#13
Me neither. It's probably very simple, but I'm just not getting it. Oh well.
#14
Seems simple enough to me.

He want a picture that, if you zoom up on it you see that it is made up out of icons, like Hank Aaron.

But if you view the whole image, it looks like a puzzle, or an enigma within an enigma perhaps.

And the most important part is, that the whole thing should fit on a CD, either as data, music, or as a top-card or booklet to fit inside the jewel, take your pick.
#15
He want a picture that, if you zoom up on it you see that it is made up out of icons, like Hank Aaron.

But if you view the whole image, it looks like a puzzle, or an enigma within an enigma perhaps.

I have to admit that your interpretation of the original message makes sense. However, with the picture of the Microsoft image in a finder window I'm nearly positive that what he wanted to do was create a picture which shows up in finder windows when you open a disk image or CD, for example. It is a technique often used by software developers to artistically embellish a disk image of their installation files.

In case anybody is interested, I popped out a quick little image in Photoshop, turned it into a finder icon picture using Iconizer Pro. The target folder of the icons was then dropped into a disk image and compressed. Unfortunately its still 635K but if you have a high-speed connection it will download in a few seconds. Once the disk image opens, you will have an image in a finder window if it is set to view as icons. If it is set to list or column view, you will see that in fact the image is made of 182 icons and clicking on the 'view as icons' button will display the picture as intended.

Its the only file right now on my iDisk...

<http://homepage.mac.com/wellesgoodrich/FileSharing1.html>

Cheers!
#16
Here's an example image which should make it clear what this ,admittedly quircky and esoteric, notion should look like (opens in own window): Example <http://members.cox.net/onlyatest/tileicon.html>

In this case, the tiles are placed on (empty) folder icons. Its fairly easy to do this manually with PS (unless you're really going nuts on the number of tiles). The hard part is aligning the overlapping icon view in the Finder- which a utility sure could speed up.
#17
Richard,

I looked at your example and, for the life of me, I can't imagine why on Earth anyone would want to create something like that. Maybe it's my browser.
#18