Working with image formats

Icons may be displayed in several sizes or color depths. In many cases, an icon rendered in 256x256 would not look nice in 16x16, because, in such small sizes, dropped shadows just disturb the user and perspective makes objects unrecognizable. Thus, the icon image must be designed in several image formats. An image format has two main properties which distinguish it from other image formats:

There should not be two image formats which have completely the same size and color depth.

An icon should have the following image formats to look nice everywhere:

In addition, the 64x64 and 128x128 formats are widely used.

Tip: Using 256 colors instead of 24-bit RGB reduces the icon file size and (in most cases) does not present a significant difference to the human eye.

Tip: If you want your icon to be used at the corner of the title bar of XP(tm) windows, you can create a 20x20 @ 32-bit icon format. This is the size in which the title bar-icons are rendered. If you do not provide a 20x20 icon, and the 16x16 format is picked by the OS for this purpose, it may look a bit blurred.

When working on an ICO or CUR file, each page represents an individual image format. Pages can be created, deleted or moved using the items in the Icon menu. To paste the copied image as a new page, choose Edit | Paste as New Page or press Shift+Ctrl+V.