Gluestick: Taking us Back to the Good Old Days

Do you remember when we actually used paper and pencils to create images? Or when we took individual pictures, and glued them together? Both of these past times have now evolved into Photoshop, among other graphic editors. But what would it be like to “glue” photos together in an application? Well, with Consonance Software‘s Gluestick, you can. Glue-based image manipulation has been created.

Now, before I tell you anymore about Gluestick, there is one thing you need to know. It is not an image editor. It is simply layer-based editing. You need to already have images before you start. There is no vector, no drawing, etc. You simply put things in different layers, and move them around. This may sound like a stupid app at first, but its usefulness does reveal itself. When you are a developer, and you need to create a document icon, or even an icon for your app, Gluestick can be extremely helpful.

As I said above, Gluestick is great for developers. The first great thing for you if you are a developer is the Source view, which lets you look through Apple’s library of system-related icons. In the bottom of the sidebar, there are a bunch of images. These are either Apple’s default icons, or the ones you have chosen, if you use CandyBar or another customization app. There are blank documents icons, types of computers, hard drives, etc. This is great because then you can create an icon based off of Apples’ defaults, so it will end up looking more Mac-like. You can also add more groups to this source view by clicking the bar above it, going to “Edit groups…” and clicking the [+] button.

Another feature for developers is the .icns export support. Gluestick can export to .icns, and fill all sizes for it. Now, one problem with this simplicity of export (File>Export) is that it does not allow you to optimize the image for each size. Some people like to do this with more detailed icons, but I usually don’t. If you do not want to change your icon for each size, this may not be an issue for you.

Now, if you are just an average user, Gluestick may not be for you. It has a few image effects to add, but other than that, it is pretty much exclusively for designers and developers. Those are the people that Gluestick was made for; however, you still can make some nice images for yourself with it. But, if that is all you are going to do with it, you might get greater value out of Pixelmator or Acorn.

In the Inspector, the last three tabs is where you can add simple effects to your images. Like I said above, Gluestick does have a few effects that can be applied to your layers, but not enough to make it a full fledged editor. The first of these tabs in the Inspector allows you to adjust color. It gives you options like Saturation, Brightness, Monochrome, etc., some basic effects you would find in iPhoto or Aperture. The second of those tabs is for adding a shadow, and specifying the opacity. The third of these tabs allows you to do many things. First, it allows you crop and zoom. At the bottom of this tab, it allows you to specify the editing background (should be wood if you haven’t customized it yet). The background will not be exported with the image, it will only be there when you are editing. Though you can specify the background that you want to be saved with the final image if you like. I wish that there were a few more editing options like reflections or strokes, but what Gluestick has should get the job done. Another problem I have found, is when clicking the “Inspector” button in the toolbar. The inspector window (if open) just moves to its original location, and doesn’t close. In most other apps, clicking the Inspector button opens as well as closes the window.

The main window of Gluestick is very simple. You click “Add Layer” to add either a text layer or an image layer. You click “Remove Layer” to remove the currently selected layer. In the Tool Select toolbar item, you can choose to either move a layer (the first one), resize a layer (the second one), or zoom (the last one). The zoom toolbar item lets you specify a percentage to zoom to.

The final thing I want to touch on is templates. These give you a guide for creating a certain type of icon. The choices are: Badged Folder, Disk Image Icon, Document Icon, or Plugin Icon. When you click on one of these templates (in the Templates menubar item), Gluestick will create a base for your icon (i.e. a disk image icon for the disk image template). Gluestick also creates a layer with the perspective of the base. You could do this yourself in another application, but this makes the process much simpler and quicker. As I have said before, this app really is for making icons.

Consonance Software‘s Gluestick retails for $24.99, and there is a free trial available at their website. Gluestick makes the process of making icons and doing some repetitive tasks very simple. The price tag is a little high for what it does, but it can help a lot for these tasks, so you may find it invaluable.

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