.ico and transparency [closed]

Question

I've been trying to make an icon that has transparency. I've tried Axialis but the documentation is crummy and the ui is somewhat inscrutable. Everytime I think I've figured out how to set transparency, it's coming in with white space. MS documenation mentions using magenta as the background, so I also tried that and got transparency but at the price of a pink halo. I've tried a Photoshop plugin and it came out correctly but I can't figure out how to stuff multiple sizes in there.

This must be a common problem and yet Google is not being my friend.

Grogram

Are you asking how to achieve this in a programming language, and if so, what programming language? – Acidulant

No. It will eventually be used by a windows app. but I'm trying to create it in a variety of image programs, none of which are playing nice or giving me what I want. I've tried Axialis, GIMP, and Photoshop. – Grogram

Answer 1

Just use GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/). Start off with a transparent background and the size you would like. I use it for all my Android applications.

Sonja

GIMP is throwing away unused pixels, so when I try to resize the layer, it's losing a bit off of all sides, and therefore, it's not going to scale right. I'm not fluent with GIMP so I may be overlooking something but I'm trying to follow this tutorial: regx.dgswa.com/html/Gimp+ico+how+to – Grogram

Scaling an image is always going to hurt it unless you have a vector to start from. I've never noticed it but if you have then the only real upgrade is Photoshop. – Sonja

Answer 2

Try Evan Old's plugin for Paint.NET. YMMV.

http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/927-icon-cursor-and-animated-cursor-format-v37-may-2010/page-1

Spherule

This works perfectly, maintains transparency and even auto scales your initial image from whateverXwhatever to 16x16 <--> 256x256 – Wonderstricken