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Create Icons from Images

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:55:28 +0000

I reviewed the icon editor IcoFx about a month ago which offered the function to create an icon from an image that would be loaded into the software. It offered some benefits like different sizes and a configurable color range which made it one of the best tools for that purpose.

Shell City mentioned the online script Bradicon today which is a stripped down version of the function in IcoFx. If IcoFx would be a commercial product then Bradicon could be its free version. It basically accepts an image and creates an icon from that image.

The icon will be provided in ico format as a download after the creation has finished. The icons that I tested were provided in 48×48 format only but it should not be a problem to resize them manually. The website contains no information about the supported image formats, I was able to upload png and jpg images without difficulties.

Bradicon is a nice alternative to IcoFx or similar products especially if you have to work in an environment where you are not allowed to download and install any additional software.

Icon Search Engine

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:48:37 +0000

If you do not like to create your own icons with a program like IcoFX Icon Editor you can use the Icon Look search engine instead which provides an easy to use interface and search. The main interface consists of a search form and three links in the footer. The search results are quickly displayed after entering a search term and hitting enter or clicking on the Look button.

By default icons of all supported sizes (12×12 16×16 22×22 32×32 48×48 64×64 128×128) are selected and displayed in the search results. Each size can be unchecked so that only those icons are displayed that have the desired size. Many icons are available in several sizes.

A click on an icon loads a detailed profile page of that icon displaying it in all available sizes. The license and the website of the developer is listed on that page as well.

Iconlook offers two additional search options. The first is the random search which displays random icons on the result page. The second is a tag cloud which is huge and kinda confusing.

Still if you are looking for icons you will definitely find a great selection at Iconlook.

Pixelformer Advanced Icon Editor

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:09:32 +0000

I have to admit that I’m not much of a designer and that I have to rely on friends and people I pay to deliver designs for my websites. I mainly use image editors to reduce the size of images or merge them but that’s it. I discovered Pixelformer a few days ago, it’s an icon editor and I have used some icon editors in the past. This one looks amazing, that’s the first thought that I had.

I know that design is not everything that counts and that functionality should be more important – are you listening Microsoft ? – but it really blows every other icon editor away when it comes to looks. Pixelformer can load high resolution images without difficulties, I remember some icon editors that would only accept images of a certain dimension. The memory footprint of Pixelformer is tiny, it uses less than 3 Megabytes after startup.

What I really like is the fact that it is possible to import icons from the computer. If you pick a file that contains more than one icon, explorer.exe, for instance then you get to choose the icon that you want to load. While the icons can be loaded from executables, system files and images they can only be imported as image files with the ico file type as the obvious choice here. Three other file types are available.

Pixelformer is an easy to use stunning looking icon editor that comes with enough functionality to make most professional icon creators happy.