Transparent Icons

posted on January 28th, 2012, 11:38 pm

Does anyone know how to make transparent desktop icons? Anytime I try, the transparent parts (and sometimes white parts) just turn black.

posted on January 29th, 2012, 12:50 am

which tool are you using to create these icons?

posted on January 29th, 2012, 12:55 am

Usually either Paint.NET or regular MSPaint.

posted on January 29th, 2012, 2:27 am

then you require a program to convert from .png to .ico since paint.net nor mspaint cannot natively save .ico files. there should be several utlities available out there that can do this for free.

posted on January 29th, 2012, 2:34 am

I take it saving by adding .ico at the end of the filename doesn't work properly? I've got a few saved like that, but they're the ones changing color.

posted on January 29th, 2012, 10:38 am

I take it saving by adding .ico at the end of the filename doesn't work properly? I've got a few saved like that, but they're the ones changing color.

that never worked for me.

i always used icofx to make my icons, it even supports various sized icons, especially useful for when win7 has big icons.

posted on January 29th, 2012, 10:55 am

yes, just renaming pngs isn't enough. that is why transparency isn't working either.

i don't know about IcoFX, but looks quite similar to what i am currently using. also a commercial product Axialis Software - Axialis Store
besides these two, there seems to be some good freeware alternatives available, too:
Icon Editor. Free Icon Maker Software.
Stardock Corporation - Software - IconDeveloper
Icon Editor for Windows
icofx was freewere at one point, so getting an older version would also be an alternative

posted on January 29th, 2012, 11:12 am

I did a quick search of the microsoft site and found a pretty nice looking online icon editor: X-Icon Editor

It is able to import images in several formats and supports multiple icon sizes.

posted on January 29th, 2012, 11:56 am

You could always use a web service like http://www.convertico.com/ to convert from PNG to ICO. I have used this site many times with no problems.

[Tyler]

posted on January 29th, 2012, 1:50 pm

Last edited by Tyler on January 29th, 2012, 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I tried ConvertICO.com and got good results.

Attachments

posted on January 31st, 2012, 7:42 pm

I know im late but fyi there are two plugins for opening/saving icons in paint.net. One is for static and the other is for animated.

posted on January 31st, 2012, 8:45 pm

I use gimp.  It seems to work, but by transparent, do you mean, see through sections or simply an icon that is not square.

It is also possible that your OS does not support them.  If you are using XP then I don't know.

posted on January 31st, 2012, 8:59 pm

Non-square, just like the icon used by Fleet Ops. I use XP and the defaults for it's icons are like that, so that's supported.

I haven't tried see-through images, can't get that to happen on Paint.Net.

posted on January 31st, 2012, 10:16 pm

Yeah, you can make any shape of icons in gimp. To make good icons though, you have to make bunches of layers at different sizes so it doesn't lose quality with size.  If you want to you can use one of mine as a template.

Attachments

icon.zip

(37.26 KiB) Downloaded 344 times

posted on January 31st, 2012, 10:27 pm

By 'see-through', I meant more like FO Buildbuttons; you can partly see things behind the icon. That's what I can't do, or even know if you can do it.

Ones that aren't-square I can do, there's a few above where I showed my results from trying ConvertICO.com.