Free Open Source ICO File Format for Photoshop
Once in a blue moon, a web developer will need to format or re-work the favicon for the website they are working on. What are the alternatives? Download a shareware from download.com. Any of those applications will need installation. Most people start complaining within a month or even a week if they haven’t purchased a license. I always try to avoid such ad-hoc installations, because you never know what else you might be installing on your machine. In other words, it’s not safe or stable.
A nice, free, and open source alternative is the open source file format plugin for Photoshop. This little plug-in works on Mac, PC, and even VISTA platforms. It supports Photoshop versions up to CS2. If you have Photoshop installed on your machine, all you have to do is download the zip, and copy the plugin (1 file) into the right folder. On my laptop the path to the folder was:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS2\Plug-Ins\File Formats
Reopen your Photoshop and you are done! drag and drop the ico file or save your image as (use “Save As…”) and choose the ICO file format.
If editing icons were a bit easier than playing with pixels. On a side note, what happened to the transparency with icons? That’s a question for another day..
