Hey, do you have any difficulty in creating .ico files. I am giving you the best solution.

Icon sizes and formats

An Icon is a graphic image or a small picture which represents a program, file or command. Icons help you to open a program or document quickly. There are standard sizes for icons which are 16×16, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64, apart from this you can have your own sizes also. Icons have different formats like ICO, PNG, GIF etc., 16×16 pixels, it can be very difficult to create such a small size.

The ICO file format is an image file format used for icons in Microsoft Windows . ICO files contain one or more small images at multiple sizes and colour depths. For example .ico files are used for Favicons. A Favicon is a little custom icon that appears next to a website’s URL in the address bar of a web browser. They also show up in your bookmarked sites, on the tabs in tabbed browsers, and as the icon for Internet shortcuts on your desktop or other folders in Windows.

Before creating the icon you must install the .ico plugin into the following directory or where the adobe program is installed. Directory – C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Plug-Ins\File Formats\. You can download from http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/ . The plugin reads and writes ICO files in 1,4 and 8-bit Indexed and 24-bit RGB modes, and also reads and writes 32-bit “XP” icons (with 8-bit alpha channel).

How to design ?

To create a 16×16 icon, start with a canvas size of 64×64.

1. Do this by opening a New file, set the canvas to 64×64 pixels in size. If you already have a logo or icon bigger than this you reduce it and see whether it is looking good. If not you can work with 64×64 px and create simple design that suits for your program or file where the icon is going to use.

2. Once the icon is ready, select Resample Image and choose “Bicubic Sharper” from the Save settings. (This option is only available with Adobe CS). If it’s still not sharp enough go back and oversharpen or increase the contrast of the original image and then save it.

3. Then Go to File>Save As and save it as .icon which you can select from the file formats.

If you feel the icon is not sharp like you wanted, just keep doing fine tuning by changing the color combos or do sharpen until it becomes perfect. At this small size it can take a few tries before you get it right.

Why are you missing to view the beautiful icons in iPOTT ?

Contact me if you want any help at imamoo(at)ipott(dot)com