Are you looking for a quick way to take any photo in BMP, JPG or PNG format and convert it into a Windows logo in ICO format? There are tons of custom icon sets you can download for Windows, but if you really want to personalize your computer, you can create an icon set that includes your family’s faces, for example. !
To create custom icons from your own photos is a fairly simple process and mainly requires you to shrink the photo to the appropriate size. Windows icons are pretty small, so the first thing to understand is that your great wide beach shot will look very small when converted to a 16×16 or 32×32 pixel icon!
Anyway, that’s something you can try when creating your Windows icon. There are a number of different ways you can create your logo, the easiest of which is by using online tools. You can download a desktop program, but it’s really unnecessary. I will also mention a program you can use to create Mac icons, unfortunately I couldn’t find a tool online.
Online Tools
ConvertIcon is a free online tool to convert PNG, GIF and JPG formats into ICO files. It does a great job and has the right features. I was also surprised that there were no ads or pop-ups or any other kind of ads, which you normally see with free services.
When you get to the website, click Begin and you will immediately be asked to upload your photo. Nothing else even loads except a small window that looks like a dialog from OS X.
Go ahead and select your image and it will show you a thumbnail preview of it. You will have to edit the image before importing as the website doesn’t have any cropping or editing options.
Also, you can only import one image at a time. Next, click Export and you will be able to choose different sizes for your ICO file including 16×16, 24×24, 32×32, 48×48, 64×64 and some others.
Once you’ve selected the dimensions, just click Save As and you’re done! It will download a single ICO file with all the different sizes you have chosen. Then you can use this icon in Windows. For example, if you want to change the folder icon on your desktop to this new icon, just right click on the folder and select Characteristic. Click Custom and click Change icon button.
Click Browse and then navigate to the folder where you saved the exported ICO file. Choose that and you’re done! Now you can even resize icons in Windows, and if you have selected all sizes when exporting (which I would suggest), the icon sizes will also change automatically. Here is an example from my desktop.
RW-Designer.com is another site that can convert images to icons without fuss. Its interface is slightly different from ConvertIcon, but otherwise you can accomplish the same thing. Click the Choose File button and then select one of the radio buttons. This site tries to make it a little simpler by allowing you to choose which operating system you want the icons for. However, if you want specific sizes, just type them in Custom size box. You can also choose to create a Favorites icon or a toolbar icon, which can be useful if you own a website.
Finally, if you want to create icons for OS X, then you can download a free program called IMG3icns. Simply drag and drop images into the program interface and select output to export as icons. They also have a pro version for the odd price of $3.90, which lets you export your favorites and iPhone icons, and saves a history of all the icons you export.
As you can see, creating your own icons in Windows or OS X is very easy. If you have any questions about creating icons, or if you can’t replace the default icon with your own custom icon, let us know in the comments and we’ll try to help. . Interesting!
