A beautiful program for icon making, editing, changing, extracting, searching, and exploring. It is fast, small, and easy to use.

• It allows you to edit transparent or opaque icons.
• The palette can be Monochrome(1 bit), 16 colors(4 bits), 256 colors(8 bits), true colors(24 bits), or true colors + alpha channel(32 bits).
• Supports any size of icon.
• Includes four enhanced icon tools, namely Icon Changer , Icon Searcher , Icon Extractor , and Icon Explorer .
• Import from or Export to graphic files BMP, JPG, and GIF.
• Beautiful and intuitive user interface.
• Windows 95, 98, Millennium, 2000, XP, and NT are supported.
• 1.56 megabyte file size. It will fit compressed on a 3½ inch floppy disk.
• Includes nifty effects, including sharpening, softening, embossing, and inverting.
• Includes enhanced icon tools:
  • Icon Explorer — Explore any icons available on your computer like a file explorer.
  • Icon Changer — Change icons of EXE, OCX, DLL, SCR, ...
  • Icon Searcher — Search icons from ICO, EXE, OCX, DLL, SCR, ...
  • Icon Extractor — Extract icons from ICO, EXE, OCX, DLL, SCR, ...

I personally highly recommend this program. I have used it mostly to alter existing icons and make folder icons, and it has served me very well. A 15-day trial version can be downloaded for free, and the full version is just $29.95! Well worth the money.