IconArt by ConWare

[IconArt] IconArt is an editor and creator for icons and cursors, including animated cursors. You can create icons or cursors from existing images or draw them from scratch in a highly magnified canvas from 16x16 pixels up to 64x64 pixels.

I tried this software out because I needed to make some new favicon (favicon.ico) files for this site. I was able to import my gif icons into IconArt with a lot of control over the colour palette, and export them .ico files.

The program is only a little bit confusing at first because all the controls are icons (oh, the irony), and you have to mouse over these icons to read their description.

The program has a lot of advanced features like loading and saving of palettes, and icon extraction from .exe and .dll files.