Tools to create Icons

Hi
How to create Icons?which is the best tool to create customized Icon images.

Inkscape or GIMP are ok and free. In general id depends whether you want to create a scalable icon (SVG) or a bitmap one (PNG). Any graphics editor should be fine provided you can handle it.

For windows I found IcoFX to be the best free tool for my needs. It can create icons including various sizes and color depths, up to true color and alpha channel. It can even add 256 x 256 compressed png format as used in vista.

http://icofx.ro/

Thanks for reply,
In most Applications the PNG format images are used in the toolbar icons.Why is the PNG format is preferred to other formats.

I guess it is a lack of decent svg icon libraries. You can find tons of free and professional icons in bitmap format but very few in vector format, and it is more difficult to create.

PNG supports full 8bit alpha channel, that's its biggest advantage over for example JPEG. It also provides loseless compression (contrary to JPEG), so the quality of such images is good. And it's Free (as in Free speech) and free (as in free beer).