Does anyone know of a free (no trial, or a 'free' program that inserts a watermark) that I could convert bmp, png, or jpegs to an ico?

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-to-create-a-faviconico-with-gimp.html
?

I didnt think that icons had a large enough resolution to be able to BE watermarked.

well, it's not really a water mark but 1 program I tried, put a little white box with a blue x through it on the corner

irfanview lets you save as .ico

jlee's link shows the hard way to do it with gimp in linux
like vinny said irfanview will save to .ico

but here's the easy way to convert to .ico in gimp

^ What is that?

Thanks vinny forgot all about irfanview, it's really changed since the last time I used it..

Irfanview is awesome, so glad Brian suggested it back in the level posting days. I've recommended it to numerous people.

just use photoshop

try reading

save image? i don't know what I looking at

It's GIMP. If you wanted to take that route, that's how you would save as an ico, but Ifranview is your best choice here.

GIMP and IrfanView suck because they have poor (if any) support for multiple icon formats and Vista's icon format. Try IconSushi.

Irfanview has no transparency support. It drops transparency from loaded files and when you save you get to pick a color to make transparent for 1-bit transparency. GIMP saves all transparency info.

Can IconSushi import normal images and save to ICO? I've been using it to just export ICOs to PNGs.

I actually had to make an ICO once with a Vista PNG in it and I couldn't find a good tool so I made one with a kickarse lib. And by made one I mean I hardcoded file paths and other commands.

Just pirate Axialis IconWorkshop like the rest of us.

I'll look it up, emon

or you could pick up stardock's IconDeveloper for 20$...

I'm not paying $20 so I can convert some images too favicons