Icon Files? How do you make yours?

[VJgamer1405241488 0]

I have been recently programming, and wanted to make some Icons to accompany my programs. I have been using a .ICO file type plugiin for Photoshop.I usually create the image, and use an alpha channel to display transparency. I find this to be more compatible. I was wondering how others make there icons.What program do you use?What format do you save it in?Are there any special techniques you use in order to make your Icons?I have been wondering this for a while now. I felt that this would be a good time if any to find out.

[totalgorepresident 0]

When I was in my programming days I would use resource hack so that after I created my exe I used that and changed the icon to a bmpResourcehack wasnt bad actually it anyone wants it ask me its shareware

[Maybe Skate Team 0]

For my .ico files I use IconCool Editor which is really simple to use and has great features. Easy to create images with different size(like 16x16, 32x32 etc.) Try it out, although the down side is I think it has a trial...but that can be solved easily!

[VJgamer1405241488 0]

I have a copy of ResHacker. It's a handy little tool all right. I have used it to extract items like the face of the cards you see in programs like solitaire from the Cards.dll file in your System32 directory! That was an interesting find. I used them to create an ActiveX control for use in this BlackJack program that I had created in Visual Basic. It came in handy, not having to worry about loading images from a resource file, or a directory.

[iGuest 3]

I use GIMP to create the image in PNG format, I create 3 sizes, 16 x 16, 32 x 32 and 48 x 48 with low colours to high colours. I then use png2ico to convert them into ICO format. This is for the application icons. I also create the icons for menus, toolbars, statusbar and whatever else I think would look good with an icon. They all follow a similar creation, I usually create an icon resource file for my programs where I build the icons directly into the program.I keep a pallete of base colours that work well for me, I do my own antiliasing by lowering opacity in colours or just going over with a lightening/darkening pencil to give it a smooth look. If I'm going to do shading, I work with a fuzzy air brush. These are probably my most prominent things I would do, other than that, I work on it's perception, making sure it'll look good, especially if using transparency I test basic background colours with the icon to see if there's no visible problems.Cheers,MC

[Dream1405241490 0]

I like to use photoshop for my icons, then saving them in .png as they are the best and support transparency.For icons itself, I prefer slick looking ones like from OSX as opposed to the windows ones, although the XP defalf icons are looking loads better ;D