I tried Icon Composer, but it didn't work, the icon wasn't transparent. The pre-made drawer icons, are .app, not .icns. What am I missing? As I understand it, I make the icon in whatever image editor I want, then open it in icon Composer, and then what? I exported it as an .icns file, but that didn't work.
OK well to try to help clear this up, take a look at
http://murphymac.com/creating-icns-icon-files/ which is a very short article regarding the steps for using .icns files as visible icons in the Finder.
Note that one of the apps mentioned (IconDroplet) appears to have vanished from the net, but another free one I use is called
Iconographer which sadly is also discontinued but the last version at that link works fine in Leopard. Also note the registration info the former developer included there for you to use to register it free.
So to try to illustrate the basic flow I use to make usable Finder icons (and I know there are about a million ways to make them, but this works for me anyways):
1. Create a file in Photoshop in the maximum icon size of 512x512 pixels (the Finder will scale down as needed and the next step will generate other sizes). Other graphics editors that are capable of preserving transparency will work too I imagine, but I just use PS myself as the tool of choice. Make
sure that when you open the new file that you have a transparent background. If you have a white background your final icon will show that white. Create your icon, then save as a .psd file.
2. Open Icon Composer and drag your Photoshop creation into the window that is appropriate for the size icon you have created in PS (again in my case 512x512) Icon Composer will ask you if you want it to scale the file to the other sizes- I generally do although you would answer no if you have constructed tweaked icons for the other smaller sizes individually. Save the file in Icon Composer- that will be an .icns file.
3, Open Iconographer. Drag the .icns file to the dock icon of Iconographer and it will open correctly. Use the "Save as..." selection from the file menu give it a name and location and click "Save". It will then ask you (probably twice) if you want to "Regenerate mask"- just click yes. It will then be saved to whatever location you chose as what the Get Info box calls a "Mac OS Icon File".
...... 3a. If you use the "Save File into...." choice here instead, you can point to a blank folder (that you make before saving) to create the icon in the format that most standard icons are shared in.
Anyway, doing it through this flow will result in an icon file with transparency preserved- though there are probably simpler methods!
