Why do you want it to be web-based? Any particular reason? I think there are certain things for which a browser is not a good application hosting platform. As an experienced web developer, I can imagine the amount of pain it will take to create a pixel based image editor.
Additionally, there are TONS of image editors available (free, commercial) for Win, Mac, Linux. I am sure you can find a program which you like.
For a desktop solution, I'd recommend Pixen. http://opensword.org/Pixen/
[Ignoring the actual time needed to use the application and create the icon. I can guess that a native application will further reduce this time.]
* As I wrote earlier, because of browser limitations, there are very few web applications geared towards icon editing/image editing.
- You generally own the license to the installed software in perpetuity. Your application source art will always be readable.
- It will integrate better with your desktop user experience. Printing, drag-and-drop, copy/paste of complex data, input devices (wacom tablets), etc.
Digging for all those icon sets alone would take a considerable amount of my time. And community seems to be tagging all those icons so it's very easy to search. I'm not aware of any desktop app providing the help of community like this.
Thanks to noodle for the heads up and kudos to the iconfu team.
From the article ( http://simplebits.com/notebook/2004/08/23/anatomy.html ) written by a professional, I understood that creating an icon is a difficult process and you need a specialized tool. [e.g. You need to have two views - Zoomed in, Zoomed out]
And I doubt you can create an icon in less than 30 seconds. [Total time taken to download Paint.NET from http://www.dotpdn.com/files/Paint.NET.3.36.zip and install.]
most people don't need a fully featured editor to create a favicon or something similar and will only spend a few minutes on it, tops. for professionals who are getting paid to produce high quality work, of course they would use a higher quality product.
If you don't have .NET, then try this: http://icofx.ro/files/icofxsetup.exe
i think its interesting that you admit to having not made an icon ever, but you're trying to convince me that i'm wrong about my (admitted limited and not professional-grade, but valid nonetheless) experiences based on a blog post you read.
/shrug
And a buck or two for a web-based icon editing app? Are you willing to pay buck or two per use OR for perpetual use?
buck or two for some sort of perpetual usage.
Here's the Hacker News Logo [http://imgur.com/1NTcL.png] which I quickly created in Paint.NET
This site, http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/, will convert it into favicon. You can also get an animated version without any additional effort.