IcoFX - The Free Icon Editor v1.6 released on 30 March 2008.

Website: http://icofx.ro

Excellent. Iv'e just been having a google for one of these.

I never tried making an icon before but this program looks so good I believe I can make one. Just like that!

You can convert any image that IcoFX can import into an icon. Make sure you learn about icon/image transparency, etc., also having some image editing skills is invaluable too.

I am quickly learning I don't have those image editing skills. Trying to learn how to use GIMP and it's kicking my rear all over the place I am usually pretty quick at picking things up but GIMP is tough. Only recently became interested in image editing when I started using Rocket Dock and wanted to modify some dock icons.

You can get free dock icons already made by visiting deviantART.com and searching for: icons
Note that some icons are in PNG format, therefore you need an icon editor/converter like IcoFX to make the PNG images into Windows icons.

Other free icon sites:

• http://www.iconaholic.com/
• http://www.wincustomize.com/ (has a download limit of 20MB if I'm remembering correctly per day for free users)

I have an old Photoshop that I mess around with, but I've never tried transparency or layers. Guess now's a good time to start.

Hi Andavari
I currently have version 1.5 installed, would it be wise to uninstall 1.5 and do a clean install of 1.6? or will the newer version just install over 1.5?

I don't know if you need to do a clean install or not, however I did a clean install. Also by default v1.6 installs into:
C:\Program Files\IcoFX 1.6

I already have about 120 different dock icons most of them from Deviant Art and Wincustomize. I didn't know about the iconaholic site though. Even though I have found many I like I would still like to change them a little. I have a little app that adds reflections to them and it works great. Just drag and drop and it does the work. I would like to change the colors of some of them though. I thought it would be as simple as using the Fill tool in the image editors but that doesn't work for me. It fills little sections at a time instead of the while area that I want. They need to be PNG format for Rocket dock.

To change the colour use the Hue/Saturation tool in either Paint.NET or IcoFX and you'll be able to change the whole icon.

I did that with Faststone Image Viewer. It has some basic image editing tools. It changed the color but it was pretty limited in range.

Does IcoFX let you work on PNG icons or does it convert everything to ico?

Yes you can work on PNG images. You can actually work on any image format that it can import. Just note though the only image formats I know of that support transparency like icons do is PNG and GIF, so if you import a JPG or BMP you'll have to manually paint in the transparency using the eraser tool.

Is a clean install the best way to go?
Not just with this program, but others as well?

It matters what has changed in a program from the previous version, and not all software needs or requires a clean installation. Installing over an existing version of some programs allows settings to remain intact, etc., in programs like CCleaner. However sometimes a clean install is the way to go.

Then again when installing some programs they will detect a previously installed version, and then automatically uninstall it before installing the new version.

I always lean more towards doing a clean install myself, even when it isn't totally necessary.

Hi Andavari
Once again thanks for the info.
Your help is always greatly appreciated.

Thanks everybody.Not ready to use it yet myself but I definitely have this thread Bookmarked. davey
Those desktops are beautiful in the Lounge.Especially those custom icons.