I hope this is in the right form, if not, my apologies.
I'm trying to create an .ico file for an application I'm making. I've never made an icon file before and I can't get it to look right. In IconWorkshop it looks fine in the previewer, and if I preview the image in windows, it looks good. But, when I put it in my application, it, for lack of a better term, looks like crap. It looks bad in the title bar of the form and bad in the start bar when the application is open, I think it's just the 16x16 icon thats giving me trouble...any pointers, or anyone willing to fix it so I can look at it and get a better idea of how to make these files?
When creating icons for applications. It is generally recommended to include following to also support backward compatibility for older systems. None of these are absolutely required. But including them in the same icon resource enables Windows to choose the correct size and color depth (bit depth) for various parts of the screen (window titlebar, toolbars, desktop, explorer file views, etc)
@ 16x16: 4 bit (16 color) & 8 bit (256 color)
@ 32x32: Same as 16x16 plus 32 bit
@ 48x48: 8 bit & 32 bit
@ 128x128: 8 bit & 32 bit (for XP and above only)
@ 256x256: 32 bit in PNG format (for Vista and above only)
If you dig about on MSDN.com, you can find the suggestions mentioned above. Here is a thread that discusses it a bit and offers other links to browse
Note that when Windows cannot find the correct size icon for whatever it needs, it will scale the one it does find. Scaled icons generally look horrible and color depth can be changed too as discussed on this MSDN page (look for Choosing an Icon about 2/3 way down page)
What language are you using to develop your application? The language may have limitations on what icon color depth you can use. For example, VB6 does not support 32 bit icons directly.
Insomnia is just a byproduct of, "It can't be done"
What language are you using to develop your application? The language may have limitations on what icon color depth you can use. For example, VB6 does not support 32 bit icons directly.