Icon Maker Application?

I've always wondered how to make icons and so one day I discovered the "Icon Composer" application. It didn't look like a professional icon composer because it had a pixelated icon. Isn't that an oxymoron for an icon maker to have a pixelated icon? Pretty poor example if you ask me.

Anyway; am I using the right Application to make professional icons?

I've also noticed that if you open the icon files of Apple built-in OS X applications in the Icon Composer application that it only has 3 sizes for each icon. Why does Icon Composer have 4 sizes to make icons if Apple only uses three of them on all of their Apps?

I want to use Photoshop to create my own icons so should I use just the three slots sizes that Apple uses on their applications (16X16; 32X32; 128X128) and disregard the 48X48 slot icon size in the application?

What in the world is a Bit Mask and why isn't there one for the full sized (128X128) icon? Does this have to do with transparency?

By the way; are there better icon maker applications out their or is this the best one?

Thanks for any feedback...No...No...not the microphone/speaker kind.

 

If possible it would be great of you could give me a comparison between iconographer and Icon Composer? Thanks.

 

If you have Panther Icon Composer comes on the developer's install disk.

I just downloaded iconographer and discovered that it is sort of like a picture editor but I don't understand why you can only edit 32X32 pixel icons and not 128X128. It says it supports icons up to 128X128, but when you create a new icon it is always 32x32 pixel and you can't make it bigger.

The features of the application otherwise look good though.

 

Oh... I see how Iconographer works now; after experimenting with it a bit. It has far more features than Icon Composer but isn't quite as easy to use. Thanks for getting me familiar with it. I'll probably use it quite a bit.