asked on

Saving a bitmap as an icon.

Hello I was just wondering how I would save a bitmap file as an icon file. I know how to convert the bitmap to an icon, but I do not know how to save it to disk once it is converted. Thanks for the help.

Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap("c:\temp\test.bmp");
Icon icon = ImageToIcon(bmp);

// How do I save the icon to disk??

// Convert an image to an Icon
System.Drawing.Icon ImageToIcon(System.Drawing.Image image)
{
return System.Drawing.Icon.FromHandle(((Bitmap) image).GetHicon());
}

- Joe

AlexFM

bmp.Save(@"c:\temp\test.ico", ImageFormat.Icon);

Realmrat

ASKER

Thank you Alex ... that appears to work - though if I try and use the newly saved icon in a project, the program crashes. Also if you try and edit it within visual studio I get what looks like only a hex representation of the object, instead of being able to edit the Icon (change colors of each pixel).

I am creating the bitmap dynamically, so I suppose that could be it. I will create a test bitmap with photoshop and see if I get the same error.

- Joe

AlexFM

Try this:

Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap("c:\temp\test.bmp");
Icon icon = ImageToIcon(bmp);
Bitmap bmp1 = Bitmap.FromHicon(icon.Handle);
bmp1.Save(@"c:\temp\test.ico", ImageFormat.Icon);

Realmrat

ASKER

I regret to inform that this did not work.

In visual studio I tried to change the form icon by clicking on the properties of the form, and browsing to the newly created icon. I received the error:

The argument 'picture' must be a picture that can be used as a Icon.

Any ideas?

- Joe

Realmrat

ASKER

Your second suggestion provided the same results.

- Joe

Bob Learned

What is the color-depth for the BMP that you are trying to convert?

Bob

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Bob Learned

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Realmrat

ASKER

Your solution worked perfectly thanks Bob.

- Joe

Realmrat

ASKER

Guess I should say I had to change a line or two to get it to compile - but minor changes. Here's the cut & paste.

public static void BmpToIcon(string sourcePath, string targetPath)
{

// Retrieve the bitmap from the file.
Bitmap bmp = (Bitmap)Image.FromFile(sourcePath);

// Convert the bitmap to an icon.
Icon ico = Icon.FromHandle(bmp.GetHicon());

// Create a file stream to save the icon stream.
Stream st = new FileStream(targetPath, FileMode.Create);

// Create a stream writer to physical write the data to the disk.
BinaryWriter wr = new BinaryWriter(st);

// Write the binary icon data to the file stream.
ico.Save(st);

// Close the file to write the stream to the disk.
wr.Close();
}