Creating a favicon with Gimp
- open a favorite image that you'd like to turn into a favicon to appear in your browser's location bar
- click Image→Mode→RGB
- using the erase tool, erase any areas of the graphic that you'd like to be transparent
- using Image→Scale, resize the image to 32×32, the proper size for a favicon
- first save the file as a GIF
- Gimp will popup a dialog that says “GIF can only handle grayscale or indexed images”
- select * Convert to Indexed using default settings
- click Export
- save a copy as .ico. It will give you a number of choices for bits/pixel:
- 1 bpp, 1 bit alpha, 2-slot palette
- 4 bpp, 1 bit alpha, 16-slot palette
- 8 bpp, 1 bit alpha, 256-slot palette
- 32 bpp, 8 bit alpha, no palette
- Choose 4bpp. However, I have seen with some images that 8bpp needs to be used.
- upload to your website and enjoy!