The applications below are not representing all available icon related programs. I mostly introduce those I am using now or I have used in the past.

 


Store and change your icons with the help of Icon Archiver!

There's virtually no limit of what you can do with it. Icon Archiver stores icons (even 32 bit), the way no other icon storage program can! It even sucks out icons (even those you never see otherwise) from any applications! It uses very little space for storing icons, so even if your Mac is strong and you have lots of RAM, if you are an icon collector you can't breath without this program!

In my opinion, this is the most useful and easy to use application in its category.

There is a special offer for Icon Archiver at ResExcellence. You can register this wonderful shareware program for only $15 instead of the usual $25. You can also read the interview with the author, Alessandro Levi Montalcini, which I made for ResExcellence a while ego. ResExcellence also has a forum thread for submitting feature requests to Alessandro for the next version of Icon Archiver.

 

Make your icons, using IconMania!

This program -what a shame- will never be upgraded to handle the 32 bit icons. But I'm still using it! This was the first icon editor I got and it has became inseparably attached to me over the years. For me, it is almost THE ultimate icon editor! The 32 bit icons are not so much appealing to me that I change my favorite icon editor for it. Not just yet anyway. With many of you are still using an older OS, I keep creating the good old 8 bit icons! It doesn't mean that I will never make 32 bit icons. Of course I will, but I'm waiting for the icon editor I can live with.

I tried several icon editors which can handle 32 bit icons. Though they all have very nice features, I haven't been comfortable with any so far. Eventually I must switch to one of them in the future, so I will keep trying and trying again until one of them becomes my "friend". They are:

Icon Boss | Icon Machine | Iconographer

You can also make 32 bit icons with the help of these non-editor programs like:

Clip2icon | Icon Builder | Export Icons

ResEdit is a free program which you can use to make your icons with and to change the icons you like. It is good for so much more though!
All of you must have heard about ResEdit and all of you have heard the same warnings like: "Be careful!", "Watch out what you are doing!"... Well, with the help of ResExcellence you will learn not to be afraid of ResEdit any more, but enjoy it!
Besides IconMania, I also use ResEdit when I make System Replacement icons or any other icons with resource numbers. I also make cursors or K-schemes with it too. You can't make 32 bit icons with ResEdit!

Finally: If you have 265 dollars to spend on a program which can edit eventually everything on your Mac, Resorcerer is your program! Would I like to get it? Oh! Definitely!

 

Decorate your Mac with the help of Kaleidoscope!

For further customizing your beloved Macintosh, download this program! You can choose from hundreds of schemes available from the Kaleidoscope Archive!

Or get Designer's Studio and make your own schemes. Though D'Studio can't help you make the K2 scheme, it is an excellent application for beginners! I haven't tried it yet but there is a program called SchemeFactory which truly helps making those hard to figure K2 schemes much easier... so I've heard.

 

Another kind of fun!

Programs like ClickChange and Zonkers let you customize just about anything in your Mac. Since I don't use them any more, I don't know if they are compatible for the latest OS but they were great while I used them.

 

My advice about making icons!

Practice, practice and practice with any kind of Icon Editor! Experiment! This is the best way to learn! It's not even learning. It's having fun! Don't be afraid to make mistakes! As Bob Ross said: "There are no mistakes, only happy accidents!"
Study other icon artists' works and try to find your own style. Don't be afraid to be original, but pay attention to some rules! Visit Apple and search for icons. You'll get a tremendous amount of information and you'll probably understand their explanation much better than what I can give you. English is my second language, therefore it is painful and time consuming for me to get so much information and thoughts together in English. So, I just simplify some important and basic rules to help you begin your first icon making experiment.

The resources:
The best way to become familiar with icon editing is to open a costume icon with ResEdit. Keep in mind that if you are using OS 8.5 and above, and the icon was made for only these OS, ResEdit will show only the 32 bit icon resource and you can't see the "picture" of the icon. If the 32 bit icon has been made compatible with all OS, you will see the 32 bit resource, all the 8 bit resources and the "picture" of the icons but you will not be able to edit the 32 bit icon's mask with ResEdit.

The colors:
If you make icons on an older OS, you have to choose the colors carefully from the 256 color palette. There are only some, called Apple supported colors, which make the selected icons properly darken and support the label colors nicely. Therefore your main colors must be chosen from the Apple supported colors.

When the given 256 colors are chosen wisely, you can even make tricks on the icons. With careful arrangement of the Non-Apple supported colors in the design, will make interesting effects when the icon is selected. See my Fantasy Squares icons.

With the new OS (8.5 and above), you don't have to pay attention to the colors any more. All colors darken properly when the icon is selected. Which also means that you loose the possibility to make the tricks mentioned above. However, you can achieve other interesting effect with the 32 bit icons, like transparency.

On any OS, gray shows the label colors most beautifully. This is the reason why most System Replacement icons are based on gray scale. The generic folder and generic file is given by the System. Since you don't use custom icons for every folder and file on your Mac, the label will give you an important visual navigation to find the folder/file you are looking for. A simple gray scale icon with label colors can be quite charming. For my eight HD partitions, I use the same simple gray scale icon, with different label colors on each, and they look beautiful on my desktop!

The outline:
This is a tricky one! If the outline is antialiased, it will look good only on the background it was antialiased for. For instance: If you have made your icon look good on a white background, it will look terrible on a dark background, since all the lighter grays, which were used for antialiasing, will show up.

A 32 bit icon will look good on any background, however it only works if the mask handled with care! Otherwise, a 32 bit icon can look as bad as an antialiased 8 bit icon.

If you want your 8 bit icon to look good on any background, you simply don't antialias it! What you can do is to choose the right angles and curves in the outline to avoid jaggies as much as possible.

The small ones:
While I was an official judge at Iconmaniac's Top Ten, I always down-scored those sets which had badly edited small icons. Sometimes the small icons showed the generic folder icons, and sometimes they were completely missing!
You have to keep in mind that small icons are very important when you switch to list view. Therefore when you make your icons, pay good attention to the small ones! They cannot be the exact replica of the big icons. They are always demanding further corrections.

The System Replacement icons:
All of us has become familiar with the well known symbols on the System Icons. Therefore any change you make on those could confuse users who otherwise love to use your icon creations. Whatever you do to make your System Replacement icons original, make them as clear as possible for the sake of instant and easy recognition. An unrecognizable System Replacement icon set can be very annoying!

The editor:
You don't need Photoshop for making icons. It doesn't make your icons look better. You do! As an example, see some of the greatest icon artists works, who are using only ResEdit(!), Mozco!Garash! and Pixture Studio to mention only two. See the interview at ResExcellence I made with Hide from Pixture Studio, and also read his opinion about the 32 bit icons.

Showcasing your icons:
When you think your icons are ready for presentation, you can send them to several places like InfoMac and ResExcellence. And you can also open your own web site for your little pixel beauties!

 

Other resources for help!

The Generic Icon Page tells everything you need to know about icons in general. There is no mentioning about the 32 bit icons but it is a great source to know what icons are!
Icon Parade is also a good source to get excellent information about icon applications as well as other icon help.
ResExcellence shows you a professional way to change the look of your Mac with the help of a wonderful program called ResEdit.
IconCursorTalk is a mailing list, mostly for PC users but also for Macintosh users. It covers all aspects of desktop graphics - icons, cursors, themes, wallpapers, screen savers, etc.
CleffieNet also have a tutorial for PC icon lover.
E-Icons helps you change the standard Windows icons.
Virtual Plastic is a great sorce for Windows users.
Easy Icon Editor is what it says, an easy icon editor, for Windows.
IconCool is an icon editor and so much more for Windows.

If you are interested in making icons you can get tips, tricks and how to info, in some cases great tutorials at the following places: Iconfactory | Icon Land | Mozco!Garash! | Pixture Studio | Perfect Yosemite | ResExcellence

 

Converting Icons!

If you are a Mac user, you can convert your Mac icons to PC, in the comfort of your Macintosh. Use Hide's Finder Icon CMM Plug-in Icon Creator's Special or Icon Archiver!

If you are a PC user, you can convert Macintosh icons in the "comfort" of your PC with the help of a program called IconShop!

The stuff, you un-stuff!

When you download icon sets from a web site, you either get a file with a suffix like hqx, sit and bin for Macintosh, zip for PC, or tar for Linux, to mention a few from the most known and used compressed file formats.

Since I'm using a Mac, hqx is the compressed downloadable file format on IliCon! Though hqx is bigger in file size than sit for instance, it is much less likely to get corrupted than a sit file.

Stuffit Expander can expand many kinds of compressed files, such as the above mentioned and more. It is free and available for both, Mac and Windows, platforms. Upgrade your Stuffit Expander!

 

I hope I could help!
Let me know when you have trouble with icons but I strongly urge you to check out all the mentioned help related links first. They will give you a wider view of what an icon is as well as how to make or change one!

Last update:
Many things has changed with the new Mac OS X and Windows XP! I'll extend the information on these pages as soon as I find the time to do it!


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