Released on = January 27, 2007, 2:29 am

Press Release Author = Aha-soft

Industry = Software

Press Release Summary = You can create, edit, import, export and find icons and
manage icon libraries

Press Release Body = Previous versions of icon editors don't support Vista Icons?
Experts from Aha-Soft have found new guidelines for solving this problem

Aha-Soft today announces the unveiling of ArtIcons 5.15, the newest version of its
award winning icon design software for the Windows OS. This version, aside from
rendering its assistance in creating, editing icon images and managing icon files
and libraries, provides great opportunities for working with Vista Icons. If you
couldn't work with Vista Icons previously, now with the new version of ArtIcons it
is going to be no trouble at all. From now onwards you will be able to handle Vista
Icons with ease. In order to make Vista icons compatible with Windows XP you can
save them without any compression.

Vista Icons introduce a new style of iconography that brings a higher level of
detail and sophistication to Windows imagery. First, the style of Windows Aero-style
icons is more realistic than illustrative, but not quite photorealistic. The icons
are symbolic images - they should look better than photorealistic. Second, icons
have a maximum size of 256 x 256, making them suitable for high-DPI displays. These
high-resolution icons allow for high visual quality in list views with large icons.
Finally, wherever practical, fixed document icons are replaced by thumbnails of the
content, making documents easier to identify and find. Thus, ArtIcons is a beeline
to refining the visuals of your program and making it more communicative for users.

A picture of a maximum size of 256 x 256 to be used as an icon, in principle, is
supported by XP, yet such an icon occupies 400Kb of disk space, which is far more
than standard 25Kb of an XP icon. Aha-Soft has again found a way to cast off these
shackles: ArtIcons 5.14 uses advanced PNG compression to save images without losses
and supports semitransparent images with 8bit alpha channel. That technology reduces
the size of an icon only, leaving the quality invariable.

Previous versions of the program have managed to hand on all their eminent features
to the new version: ArtIcons 5.12 is equipped with all essential drawing tools
including various kinds of airbrushes, pencils and paintbrushes as well as
miscellaneous text, line and shape tools. The software also offers a variety of
solid, patterned and gradient flood fills, drop shadow, smooth, color modification
and other effects. The program features easy converting from one image format into
another.

ArtIcons 5.14 will help you to obtain the modern Windows Vista look. All you need is
just to redesign your program's most prominent icons to use the Aero-style. From
this time onwards Visa Icons crafted by ArtIcons 5.12 will strongly impact users'
overall impression of your programs' visual design. ArtIcons will improve the
usability of your software by making programs, objects, and actions easier to
identify and find.

ArtIcons 5.15 Benefits at a Glance:
. Vista Aero-style Icons support;
. PNG format to compress high-resolution images without losses;
. Saving Vista Icons without compression provides compatibility with XP;
. Find and extract, edit, import and export icons and manage icon libraries;
. Lot's of delicate power instruments for creating and editing icons;
. Import and export ICO, CUR, BMP, JPG, PNG, PSD, etc. images;
. Multilanguage support.

Pricing and Availability
ArtIcons 5.15 runs under Windows 95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP/2003/Vista and costs $29.95
(USD) for a single user license. Registered customers are entitled to lifetime
technical support and discounts on further updates. Additional information on
ArtIcons, as well as its 30-day evaluation version with nag screens is available
from http://www.aha-soft.com.

About Aha-Soft
This privately owned company was founded in 2000 and is off to a phenomenal start,
receiving high praise in its first years of operation from top Internet download
sites including ZDNet, TuCows and Simply the Best. Based in Krasnoyarsk, Russia,
Aha-Soft manufactures advanced image processing software for professional and
amateur graphic artists. Aha-Soft's line of icon and cursor tools features
innovative software designs to set new standards. For more information, please visit
http://www.aha-soft.com.

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AN EVALUATION COPY IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

Product page link: http://www.aha-soft.com/articons/index.htm
Download link: http://aha-soft.com/articons/aicon.exe
Company website: http://www.aha-soft.com

Web Site = http://www.aha-soft.com/articons/index.htm

Contact Details = Address: P.O. Box 17077, Krasnoyarsk-10
Russian Federation

Phone Number: +7(903)9225785
Email: webmaster@aha-soft.com