Today, I wanted to create my own icon for my blog, but I found out that Photoshop CS4 does not support this file type. What to do? Fortunately, there exists a plugin for this. It's a plugin created by Telegraphics and is completely freeware, even with source code in C++. The only downside is that it doesn't support 64bit version of Photoshop CS4, so you have to always use the 32bit one.
Download and links
Maybe you noticed that, but Mac version is higher and supports even .cur files. Plugin is supported by Photoshop 3.0-CS4 (but developed for 3.0-CS2), Elements and Paint Shop Pro.
Installation is very easy and all you need to do is to copy ICOFormat.8bi to plugins folder of Photoshop. On 64bit Windows Vista with Photoshop CS4 it's the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4\Plug-ins\File Formats\". When you start your 32bit Photoshop and opening the Open dialog, you'll see a new file type "ICO (Windows Icon)", but I recommend to stick with "All formats". Why? When I selected the ICO file type, .ico files became hidden as well. It's a minor bug.
After opening you may get the following dialog. It's in the case that the icon is saved in multiple formats.
When you get the following error, try to restart your computer. But there's a possibility that it won't work anyway.
I prefer the following approach. Create your icon in Photoshop and convert your JPG, PNG, GIF or whatever other file type to ICO in Paint.NET application. Paint.NET is a freeware and I will post similar guide for it as well.