You Can’t Fire Me, I Don’t Work In This Van

I’d just like to thank everyone for holding on through 3 updates this week on Gluestick, plus the registration system being temporally down. I’m very pleased at the response and the download numbers on Sparkle and other locations. It’s been a success, considering there has been zero marketing effort on Gluestick. But, we’re already hard at work on the next version, which will be a free update, but won’t be shipping for a bit (more on that next post).

The icns export added in 1.0.3 has a special feature I just wanted to write about real quick. It’s something that we had identified as something we wanted to be part of Gluestick from the very beginning, we just didn’t get a chance to throw the switch until 1.0.3.

Gluestick is unique in that it is completely non destructive. When you resize an image in Photoshop, the original resolution, in it’s original quality is lost. (Technically, it’s buried in the undo system, but I digress…) Gluestick works differently. Let’s compare.

In Photoshop, we’ll start with a 256×256 source, like the Gluestick icon.

Now, from top to bottom, I’m going to take the source icon, resize it to 128×128, and then save it back out at 256×256…

See what happened? Photoshop didn’t hold on to the original source image. When we re-expanded the image there was substantial quality loss.

So what does this have to do with icns export you ask? Remember the default document Gluestick opens with?

The default layer in a document is the Gluestick icon, at 128×128. But try exporting it to a icns. Notice anything? The 512×512 looks PERFECT. Even though you feed it a 128×128 document.

The truth is a little more complicated. Yes, the default layer is 128×128. But the source image for that layer is actually a 512×512 image. When Gluestick goes to export your icon, it actually reconstructs your composition using the original source material at a larger scale. In a way, Gluestick’s icns export is resolution independent. Even if you’re working at a 128×128 scale, given proper source material, Gluestick can generate clean 512×512 icons. And, if Apple ever makes icon sizes larger, Gluestick will be able to cleanly create larger icons for you, again, given proper source images.