Icon Editing

[Ken]

I was recently informed that it is possible to paint
something using Windows Paint, save it as a bitmap, and
then use it as an icon. However, when I painted something
and saved it as a bitmap and loaded it as an icon, it
came up as a black square. Are there colors that Windows
doesn't support in an icon? I was also told that using an
Icon editor would be best... however, all the icon
editors are shareware ('least the one's i've found).
Anything I'm doing wrong with the paint program, or (on a
similar note) does anyone know of any freeware icon
editors?

 

[David Candy]

XP doesn't handle transparancy properly. When a bitmap is an icon the colour of upper left pixel is the colour that renders transparent. With XP it renders black. Make the upper left pixel a colour that you are not otherwise using. In an ico file each image has two bitmaps (per size/colour depth) that are merged to get the transparent section.

If you send me a mail I give you a copy of an icon maker (you paste bitmaps in from paint and it makes the second bitmap based on the colour you tell it is the transparent colour in the first bitmap).

 

[XYZ man]

I use a program called IconArt. It has a Freeware and Pro version. The
Freeware is great!
http://www.conware.org/