How to Easily Create Icons Using iFile and iRetouch!

Posted by Allyn on May 17, 2010 in Apple, Apple, Cydia Apps, Guides, Themes, iPad, iPad, iPhone, iPhone & iPod Touch | 10 comments

This tutorial will teach you how to create an icon(s) from pictures/screenshots in your camera roll! For the purpose of this guide, I will show you how to change the icon for the app iRetouch, which you need to install to do this.  It is easy to do after you have done it once and you will be able to amaze people by quickly making their face, or any pic an app icon on your springboard! Required apps: iFile, iRetouch, Winterboard.

Step 1. Install iFile from Cydia. This app is free to use, but premium features require a paid registration. This app will allow you to browse and edit your device’s file system as the Root user.

Step 2. Install iRetouch, this is available on the App Store. It is a paid app, but there is a light version. This is an easy to use photo editor that can re-size images and save back to your photo library. I prefer this app over PSMobile for editing and resizing on the go!

Step 3. Open iFile and navigate to /var/stash/Themes or /Library/Themes. Hit edit, then touch the plus sign at the bottom left. This will create a new file or directory. Name it whatever you want, for this example, name it “NEW.theme”, and go to the “Type” field and select “Directory”. Then hit “Create”.  Then open this folder, and hit “edit” and the plus sign again and create another directory file and call it “Icons”.

Step 4. Take a screenshot (home and power button at the same time) of the app iRetouch while open, the springboard, or take a photo that you will use for an icon.

Step 5. Open iRetouch, select Touch-up Tools and find the image you want to use, it will be the most recent image in “Camera Roll”. Hit the image that looks like a cloverleaf in the sidebar and hit any of the ratios (640, 800, 1024). They will change the dimensions of the image and bring up a slider to scale it down. Slide the size down. Try to get the aspect as close to Apple standard of 55×55 as possible. Hit “Photo” then “Save(smaller ratio)”.

Step 6. Go back to iFile and navigate to /var/mobile/media/DCIM/100APPLE. The last photo you edited should be last on the list. Hit edit then “copy link” the file and navigate back to /var/stash/Themes/NEW.theme/Icons. Select “edit” again and then “paste”.

Step 7. Rename the icon you just moved to “iRetouch.png”. Be careful of case, and be sure to change the “.JPG” to “.png”. The case-sensitive filesystem recognizes .JPG file extension in capital letters and .png in lowercase. Be sure to rename the original photo to “.png” or it will not work!

Step 8. Go to Winterboard and drag “NEW” to the top and re-spring, you should have a new icon!

Step 9. Repeat steps 4-7 to create icons for as many apps as you like, just copy/link, paste into the Icons folder in NEW.theme. Remember to be precise with the case and app names. The appname.png should look exactly like the icon’s label in springboard, eg. “fring”=”fring.png”.

I hope this post helped you personalize your iPhone, or really amaze someone by taking a pic of their face and quickly making it an app icon! if you are new to editing files on your device, look for “iFile 101″, coming soon! If you liked this tutorial, or need help with this mod, find me on Twitter @xsn0w! Enjoy your one of a kind icon(s)!

Screenshots of iFile, iRetouch and springboard with new icon for iRetouch:

This was posted by Allyn (xsn0w) originally on iYoshiblog.

Related posts:

1. Classica 2 – Revitalize Your Default Icons
2. How to Enable Voice Control on your iPad
3. Suave Badge Pack [Theme Addon]
4. How to SSH Into Your iPhone On Windows
5. How to fix Cydia Repo Errors : Using your iDevice or computer