I come across the following icon editor software, which 1 is the best? want to buy 1. Any feedback from the pro here?

AWicons Pro 9.2.0
Creating high-detail true color alpha-blended icons becomes a tough task unless we use the right tools. Lokas presents a complete icon creator toolbox - AWicons Pro! AWicons allows creating, editing and managing icons and other small imagery. It handles popular file formats used to store multiple icons of various sizes and all possible color modes! At an unbeatable price you can purchase all the tools you need to create graphically rich icons! Free lite version also available.


Axialis IconWorkshop v6.01
professional tool designed to create,
extract, convert, manage and redistribute Windows® and Macintosh®
icons. It has a fully integrated workspace that permits you to
work efficiently and create high-quality icons in minutes.


AZ Icon Editor 5.7
is a full-featured and powerful icons tool for creating and editing icons of any size and color depth, as well as Windows static or animated cursors. The program provides all the icon/cursor drawing tools and a variety of advanced image manipulation functions, with an extremely efficient arrangement. (In addition, supplementary programs are available for registered users, free of charge, to cater to other special needs, e.g. to convert file formats, to replace an icon in an exe file, or to create library files, etc.)


Bee Icons v4.0.2
can replace almost any system icon with a more stylish and improved version. You can change Desktop icons, Start Menu, Hard, Floppy and Compact Disk icons. You can also assign unique pictograms to any folder or file type. Bee Icons allows you to change just one or two icons or you can apply an entirely new icon set to the desktop using Icon Themes. Currently, there are more than 50 unique Icon Themes to choose from


Easy Icon Maker v5.0
is a small and easy-to-use all-in-one icon utility for icon making, editing, changing, extracting, searching, and exploring
It allows you editing a transparent or opaque icon. The sizes may be 16 X 16, 32 X 32, 48 X 48, 64 X 64 or custom it as you like. The colors may be Monochrome(1 bit), 16 colors(4 bits), 256 colors(8 bits), true colors(24 bits), or true colors + alpha channel(32 bits).


FolderIcon XP v1.02
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP utility. Change an icon or color of any folder. Only two clicks to mark a folder.


Icon To Any v2.05
allows you to convert Windows icons and cursors into ICO, CUR, BMP, JPEG,
GIF, PNG, PSD, TIFF, XBM, XPM, WBMP and RC files. You can resize existing icons. This
wizard can easily process multiple files at once. You can find icons and make images for
use on Web pages.


IconCool Editor v4.86
Edit icons, cursors, animated cursors and other small images;
- Modify icons in DLL, EXE, ICL or any other files;
- Make animated mouse pointers(ANI);
- 60+ image filters and effects;
- Create icons from images in 25 formats;


IconCool Studio 1.72
Professional Icon Editor & Icon Maker
Edit icons, animation cursors, animation GIF and various image formats;
- Completely support 32 bits icons(Windows XP icons);
- Easily edit animation GIF files;
- Support PSD plug-in and customizing Windows icons
- Export icon images to Photoshop


Picture To Icon v1.88
converts images or any part on your screen into icons, resizes the icon and extracts icons from libraries.
With Picture To Icon you make nice Windows icons of your pictures and digital photos quickly and easily.
Picture To Icon converts PNG, BMP, JPEG, GIF, CUR, WMF formats into all sizes of Windows icons. You can capture any part on your screen and convert it into icon or BMP file. You can resize icon form 1 x 1 icon to 240 x 240 icon. All icon sizes below 240 x 240 can be supported by Picture To Icon. It's possible to convert 256-color icons into true color or any other color. icons in the exe, dll, ocx and other executable files can be extracted easily.

Wow, that's a good question. Unfortunately, this isn't something I'm particularly knowledgeable, so I can't give my opinion. Hope some of the below helps:

AWicons Pro 9.2.0 - Given 5 Stars by Cnet editors. (Demo)

Axialis IconWorkshop v6.01- Average CNet rating of 4 stars. (Demo)

AZ Icon Editor 5.7- Not reviewed or credibly rated anywhere. (Demo)

Bee Icons v4.0.2- Review. (Demo)

Easy Icon Maker v5.0- Review. (Demo)

FolderIcon XP v1.02- Avg. CNet user rating of 4.5. (Demo)

Icon To Any v2.05- No reviews found. (Demo)

IconCool Editor v4.86- Reviews not found. (Demo).

IconCool Studio 1.72- No reviews found. (Demo)

Picture To Icon v1.88- Reviews. (Demo)

So try the demos and then choose.

I'd recommend a full fledged illustration software like Illustrator, Corel Draw or Freehand plus any software that gives the ability to automaticaly save and resize your images as icons like axialis iconworkshop

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Thank you for the feedback.

After trying on few of them, I finally decided to go for Xara Xtreme US$79.00.
http://www.xara.com

Will try it out and share some of my work later.

I've tried using my old paint shop pro in the past to make icons without much luck.

Surely there's a decent totally free one out there? It's annoying how these simple pay products are muscling out the free alternatives that MUST exist surely...