Top 5 Free Icon Editors for the Pro Designer

May 3, 200819 Comments
Topics]GUI / IconsAuthor]

There are a lot of Premium Icon Editors you could use, but if you look deeper there are FREE Icon Editors that are just as powerful (in some cases more so) as premium versions, easier to use than Photoshop or Illustrator, and can create amazingly polished professional icons.
Here are my top 5 FREE Icon Editors

1. IcoFX 1.6

Icon FreewareURL: http://icofx.ro/.
Features: Support for Vista icon with PNG compression; Create icons for Windows 98 / ME / 2000 / XP / Vista; Support for Mac OS X icons; Convert Macintosh icons to Windows icons; Create icon libraries; Create favicon for websites or blogs; Easily convert images to icons; Add, change or delete icons inside exe files; Support for transparency (alpha channel); Batch processing for import, export and extract; Multiple language support; More than 40 effects + custom filter; Resolutions up to 256×256; Data types: 2, 16, 256, True Color, True Color + Alpha; Extract icons from 32 bit exe and dll; Import and export images; Transparent, Brighten/Darken, Blur/Sharpen tools.
View: This is by far the the best Free Icon Editor, with its feature list seemingly endless and the quality of the end product pheneomenal. Recommended.

2. Iconmaker

Icon FreewareURL: http://free-icon-editor.com/.
Features: Create and edit icons in either standard or custom sizes, in color depths up to 16 million colors. Standard icon sizes are 16×16, 32×32, 48×48; Make icons with transparency; Make icons for Windows XP in 32-bit color depth with 8-bit alpha channel; Paint images with pen, brush, airbrush, ellipse, rectangle, line, curve tools; Roll, shift and rotate images; Import and export .ico, .png, .xpm, .xbm, and .icpr formats; Sort images inside icons; Copy and paste images to other applications; Test icons.
View: Strictly speaking this isn’t free, but you do have a 30 day free trial. Overall this is an excellent editor, not as good as IcoFX, but very powerful and professional all the same.

3. IconDeveloper

Icon FreewareURL: http://www.stardock.com.
Features: Create & Edit Small Sized Icons (16×16); Create & Edit Standard Sized Icons (32×32); Scale Icons to different formats; Convert PNGs to icons; Create & Edit Windows XP formatted icons; Right click on images from Explorer and convert to icons; Convert images from clipboard (copy & paste) into icons; Create & Edit Very Large Sized Icons (48×48); Create & Edit any sized icons (any resolution, up to 256×256!).
View: There is also a premium version from Stardock which offers a few more features, the free version offers enough to make it a very good good editor. The interface looks amazing, making it the easiest editor to use.

4. aaIco Icon Editor 3.0

Icon FreewareURL: http://www.xceedz.com….
Features: This hasn’t got as many features as the rest, but is a great little icon editor, that will create basic icons. This would be great for the novice designer.

5. Greenfish Icon Editor Pro (version: 1.51)

Icon FreewareURL: http://greenfish.extra.hu/downloads.php.
Features: Easy to use, lightweight, requires no installation (portable); Supports file drag and drop; Has multilanguage support (included: English, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Serbian, Spanish); Help also available in French, separate download; Click here to help us by translating the program; Sample documents are included; Uses dynamic color depth; Opens and saves in ICO, CUR, ANI, PNG, XPM, BMP and JPEG formats; Can create icons and cursors up to 256×256 @ 32-bit, which can also be PNG-compressed for use in Windows Vista(tm); Can create animated cursors; Can handle images up to 1024×1024 and larger; Can extract icons and cursors from executable files and icon libraries; Can batch convert image files to icons, or to another image format; Has advanced selection handling (marquee, lasso and wand tools, saving/loading selections from files); Offers various gradient styles for filling shapes; Lots of filters including Remove matte, Drop shadow, Inner/Outer glow and Bevel.
View: The interface isn’t as polished as IconDeveloper, not as easy to use as the rest (thats why I haven’t got it at Nu.1), but my god look at the feature list. This is an editor for the pro.

About the Author: (564 Articles)

Paul Andrew is the editor and founder of Speckyboy Design Magazine. You can follow Speckyboy on Twitter, on Facebook, on Digg or you can subscribe via RSS.

Comments and Reactions

  • Pingback: 5 Editores de íconos gratis para Windows - Diseño | pixelco.us blog

  • Pingback: Selección de editores de iconos gratuitos para Windows » Cosas sencillas

  • http://www.sketchee.com/ Sketchee

    That icofx program looks pretty cool, that’s one I’ll have to try!

  • http://www.mikro-pc.com mikro-pc

    that’s great list. thank you speckyboy.

  • Nisse

    No real designers uses windows…

    • Fell X

      Nisse, c’mon, wake up !

      Professional designers use dedicated software on graphics stations, not commercial programs on a common PC.

      But these are not for the designers, these are for common users, especially those with a bit of talent, to enable them to make something good looking for themselves and friends.

      If you feel genial, you can make icons in MathCAD and convert them to .ico, but that’s completely besides the point.

      If you feel artsy you can use Adobe and create icon magnificence, but what a user wants is a simple, easy to understand and use icon editing program, that you don’t have to take a special course just in order to be able to put a picture of your wife’s favourite broach as an icon for her personal folder, ok ?

      ‘Guess that’s about all….

      Thanks, Paul, you really helped me. Kudos !!

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  • http://www.cyclone200.com Cyclone200

    Thx ! =)

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  • http://www.buycarandsellcar.com Eugene

    Really cool stuff, thank you for that

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  • http://greenfish.xtreemhost.com greenfish

    Greenfish Icon Editor Pro 2.0 now supports layers which no other free icon editors do – so give it a try if you want to :)

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  • Fell X

    Just an idea:

    When making desktop icons, you might want to take a look to the advertising world and see that simpler is better. An icon has to be small by default, you don’t want something the size of your hand on the screen, therefore what appears to be brilliant in the design window might end up a cluttered mess on the screen.

    Check the way logos in general and buttons on electronics look.

    Professional designers gave those a lot of thought before setting them loose among consumers.

    Be well, be original !

    Tks, Paul !

  • http://twitter.com/PainMgtTrk Kevin Carpenter

    Just a note, but it looks like IcoFX is now trial/buy since they hit 2.0.  I was digging to go find the download site again (lazy to search the TB of hard drives) and found they wanted $59 for it now.  Its good software, but if you still have 1.64 around it was freeware.

  • Massimo Mula

    I’ve tried IcoFX, IconMaker and Greenfish, here’s my opinion:

    - IcoFx: I use it regularly, v. 1.64 is the last free version but somewhat limited since it does not support layers and effects are quite limited.
    Newer versions seem to be better but unfortunately the are now commercial.
    v.1.64 is still a nice editor if your icons are not too complex (i.e. with lightings, transparencies etc.)

    - IconMaker: it is advertised as ‘free’ but it is actually a 30-day evaluation version.
    I installed it, anyway, just to be flooded with ad screens and other nags inviting to buy the full version and more icon packages.
    In addition icon size is limited to 64×64 and several important parameters are locked.
    Removed immediately: they have lost a potential customer.

    - Greenfish: In my opinion the one which offers the best functions.
    Unfortunately it has some stability problem (at least, on my PC), i.e. after you create an icon from image, it is often impossible to edit its pages unless the Editor is closed/reopened; In addition, several Access violation error messages appear randomly (i’m using WinXp 32bit, SP3).
    Think I’ll try to contact the programmers: maybe the bugs will be solved in future releases.
     

    By now, I think the DEFINITIVE free icon editor does not exist yet.

    Regards,
    MAx – Italy

  • Real Bull

    As Massimo Mula said, IcoFX is now unfortunately NOT free since the 2.0 version. I use IcoFx the most because it is very easy to use. It has a unique “drag and drop” feature that makes it very easy and fast to combine icons to create new ones. You can make some nice icons with the provided tools even without having the layer palette feature. The trick around this is to pre-create layers before you drag them on the main image, so you will have many windows open for each layer. But, if you make a mistake, it will be annoying to fix. Also 256 pixels is the max size.

    My second choice would be GreenFish because it has many features and stable since the new 3.0 version. There are many tools and effects to use and there is a layer palette feature. If you want a working environment similar to Photoshop then this would be the best choice.

    Actually Jr. Icon Editor really is free and NOT a trial limitation. I installed this, but found it too limited for making icons. 48 pixel icon size is the max, not good if I want to create 256 pixel Vista/7 size icons. It is better to download and use the “Big Brother” version; SIB Icon Editor
    http://www.sibcode.com/icon-editor/
    I have downloaded and kept this one. You can make sizes up to 256 pixels and have many other tools and effects to use to create icons. For me this runs a very close #2 with GreenFish.

    As for the others, I would say, “don’t bother trying them.” Unless you are a beginner it is OK to use, but not for more professionals.

    But their is one icon editor that is pretty good and not mentioned here….Pixelformer at
    http://www.qualibyte.com/pixelformer/
    The last update was a RC3 release in 2009, but may still be in development. Here are the main features:
    +no restrictive limits for image dimensions+support for different color depths up to 32-bit RGB with alpha channel+semi-transparent colors+multiple layer support+free-form masking+in-place supersampling+lossless target color depth switching+independent access to color and alpha channels++support for multiresolution icons+dynamic palette generation+multiple file format support+icon extraction capability+PNG size optimization+Vista icon optimization+alpha premultiplication+deep undo buffer

    …with all of these features, it is hard to believe it isn’t more popular. I recommend you to try this one, too and write to the developer to continue further development.
    That is all from me, good luck.

    • Johny Goo

      I used to use IcoFX, but when I updated it, they moved me into a 30-day trial that I didn’t like. I went looking for alternatives and so far, Greenfish icon editor is the best I’ve found. Its great for making professional-looking icons, and has many advanced functions and features.

  • Sense Online

    Greenfish is GONE! IcoFX I paid for, but the flip-flop developers are also scammers, so now I suddenly did not pay for. Icon editing is the dog’s rear end of software on a really smelly day. Speckyboy is SO_O_O_O brave. My only claim to fame is shoving money in their undeserving pockets. New Toy! http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/browser/iconeditor/default.html Let's hope when it appears it STAYS FREE.