Favicon tool benchmarks: converting a PNG image to an ICO favicon

Many tools claim to convert favicons from one image format to another. A number of such favicon tools are recommended or suggested by a variety of sources on the web. I asked several of these tools to carry out just one, very specific task: given a PNG image with such and such properties, return an ICO image that IE can display. The screenshot below compares how well a number of these tools performed this task of converting a 32-bit PNG image with transparency into an icon image suitable for IE browsers. As you can see, some tools do rather better at this task while others do, well, rather worse.

I did not ask any more of these tools than a quick, straightforward conversion of a PNG image into an ICO image. I did not edit any resulting images. I did not try to master any tool. If a tool did not offer up its magic key for PNG-to-ICO conversion within a minute or so, I moved on to another tool.

This screenshot shows the ICO images produced by these tools. The window background is light gray to reveal opaque images. For ease of comparison, the original PNG image is shown at the left on each line. To the right on each line is the ICO image generated by a tool. Properties of the original PNG image are at the bottom.

Groups of these tools appear to use a common algorithm for image conversion. These tool groups are graded together in the next table. Images are shown at 32x32 pixels to reveal detail.

grade	icon image	tool/vendor	observation
A		towofu’s SOFT: @icon sushi; Impact Sofware: Microangelo Creation; Icon Empire: IconoMaker; aha-soft: IconXP; TheAlas.com: IconMasterXP; Oy Frontbase: Image to Icon	high fidelity
B+		Dynamic Drive: FavIcon Generator	clean, but some scale distortion
C		Axialis Software: IconWorkshop	some scale and noise distortion; spiky balls
C-		favicon.ru IconWorkshop	scale & noise distortion
D		Benkmann: png2ico; DeGraeve: Favicon Editor; HTML-Kit: FavIcon from Pics	considerable distortion
F		graphicsguru: Favicon Generator; IrfanView; Newera Software: IconCool Editor; kgreene: Favicon Creator;	considerable distortion and opaque
F		ImageMagick Studio: ImageMagick	failure
F		Favicon Generator	failure
F		Program4Pc: Icon Converter Plus	failure

Notes:

• IconXP and IconoMaker appear to be cloned products; both have the same user interface as well as the same apparent output.


• Oy Frontbase’s Image to Icon trial version watermarks images. So does Program4Pc’s Icon Converter Plus.
  
• I have not provided links to tools; all are easily googled.

Other tools:

tool/vendor	observation
CursorArts: IconForge	Does not appear to convert PNG to ICO.
Conware Software: IconArt	Does not appear to recognize PNG.
AxiomX: PixelToolbox	Does not appear to recognize ICO.
Kozhinov: IconEdit2	Trial version would not save ICO file.