Member Avatar for woocha

Hey guys,

I am looking for open source or at least free software that can be used to make icons. I want to be able to take a photoshoped jpg file and turn it into an ico file. I want at least the few basic standard options. Does anyone have any ideas about the best free or hopefully open source icon software.

Thanks

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asked for free / open-source ways to turn a photoshopped JPG into a Windows .ico. correctly pointed at GIMP and mentioned an online option — the notes below add a short, practical offline workflow (best for privacy and quality) plus a couple of other free tools and quick commands.

A simple GIMP workflow (good when you want multiple sizes in one .ico): open the JPG, add an alpha channel if transparency is needed (Layer → Transparency → Add Alpha Channel), make the canvas square and duplicate the base layer for each target size (256, 128, 64, 48, 32, 16). For each duplicated layer use Layer → Scale Layer… to set the exact pixel size and tidy pixels at the smallest sizes. Export the file with File → Export As… and choose “Microsoft Windows icon (.ico)” — GIMP will pack each layer as a separate entry in the ICO. (stackoverflow.com)

Command-line alternative (scriptable, great for batches): ImageMagick can build a multi-resolution .ico in one line. Example:

magick input.jpg -define icon:auto-resize="256,128,64,48,32,16" myicon.ico

This produces a single .ico containing those sizes; swap input.jpg for any square PNG/SVG source for better results at small sizes. (usage.imagemagick.org)

Other lightweight/free options: on Linux the icotool (part of icoutils) assembles PNGs into an .ico (for example icotool -c -o favicon.ico 16.png 32.png 48.png). For a Windows GUI editor that’s free and small, Greenfish Icon Editor Pro remains a useful choice. Also note some older “free” editors (e.g., RealWorld Icon Editor) may have commercial licensing today — check the project page before using. (nongnu.org)

Troubleshooting tips: keep art square, test the 16×16 and 32×32 layers and manually pixel-tweak for clarity, ensure an alpha channel for transparent icons, and prefer offline tools for sensitive images.

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Member Avatar for ShawnCplus

The GIMP can do this pretty well. Though I usually just make my own in GIMP, I've never tried to convert jpg over. You could try to just open it with GIMP then do a save as... then use .ico, it should bring up a dialog asking which type of icon to use.

Member Avatar for woocha

hey..Thanks a lot...I am going to check it out right now

Member Avatar for svalen

Hello,

I use an online tool available at iconshock's website, it's free to use (you can find it here. It lets you create the ico in a combined version (the one that lets you have all the sizes) and change the background color if you need to. It's nice because you don't have to download anything and it's easy to use ^^ I hope it's useful to you.

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