Windows icons on Mac?

[jacobdesch]

Hi all, I'm not sure where this would fall under, but I'm hoping someone out there may have a suggestion.

I'm creating my graphics on my Mac and I just got contracted to do an icon set for a client. I found a really nice little (free) program that makes beautiful Mac icons out my the graphics that I can create in Photoshop or Illustrator. However, I know that the majority of my viewing audience is going to be in PC format and the ones I'm currently creating only work on a Mac. I have a plugin for Photoshop that can save as a windows icon (.ico) but when I put them on my PC, they look quite pixelated and hard to make out. Am I unaware of some sort of special standard, color, etc. that needs to be conformed, too for the PC.

I know they need to be designed fairly small (approx. 48px x 48px) and in RGB mode (obviously), but it seems like they could look a lot better than they do. Any suggestions? Programs (on the cheap)? Work-arounds?

[KDLA]

When I design icons, I create them at 256px x256px. I also use IfranView for the .ico conversion -- it's free.

[Ascendancy]

If you are trying to make .ico files, then I think you are making them a bit too big. If you are linking them to your websites as the small icons that appear in the bookmarks section or at the top corner of the webpage, then those file sizes are 16px by 16px. That might help with the pixelation.

[KDLA]

Ascendancy is right. The dimensions mentioned in my post pertained to desktop icons. (I wasn't sure of your purpose ;) )

KDLA

[Stephen Philbin]

I thought Jacob was talking about desktop icons. If it is desktop icons Jocob, then I think you need to make them 32 by 32 pixels. I just ran a search on my old Windows HDD that's got XP on it and most of them seemed to be 32²px, but I also found an icon for DivX folders (or at least that's the impression I got from the file name) that was 48²px.

[KDLA]

Hmmm... the icons at deviantart are usually large resolutions. Maybe it depends on the complexity of the graphic. ??

[Stephen Philbin]

I dunno. Even if I'm doing very small icons (like favicons at 16²px) I tend to start them as very large png images. I draw them at much higher resolutions first, because I just find it easier to get the finer details right that way. Once I'm happy with the large scale image, then I just scale it down and change the file type. Perhaps the larger images on deviant art are kept at larger sizes for greater flexibility. Though I'm not really sure where images from deviant art came in to this.:confused: