A couple of my favorite things... Paint.Net and Windows Phone 7 (and using the one to create App and Tile icons for the other)

Windows Phone Geek - Creating WP7 Tile and Application Icons for FREE with Paint.NET

"In this post I am going to talk about how to make a Windows Phone 7 Tile Icon using Paint.NET: a FREE image and photo editor.

What is Paint.NET?

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for Windows. It has all the features that you will need when designing Icons,Images, etc. Some of the cool supported features are:

• All standard Image editing features
• Layers
• Special Effects
• Powerful Tools for drawing
• Unlimited History

NOTE: Paint.NET is a free tool released under Creative Commons license. So you are free to build whatever icons/images you prefer and use them in your WP7 apps!

Building WP7 Tile Icon using Paint.NET

To begin with lets first mention some of the certification requirements related to Tile and Application icons:

Application icon should be:

• PNG file format
• 62 x 62 pixels

Tile icon should be:

• PNG file format
• 173x 173pixels

For more information take a look at our previous article: WP7 Application Icon and Application Tile Icon

First download and install Paint.NET from its official web site: http://www.getpaint.net/ .After successfully installing the tool just start it:

...

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This is my kind of tutorial (since I pretty worthless when it comes to "graphic tool usage"... lol). Simple, easy to follow and uses the uber Paint.Net!  :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Sometimes a picture says… Photoshop Design Templates (and other design resources) for Windows Phone 7
Application Bar Icons for your Windows Phone 7 development
A Windows Phone 7 Development/Design Guidelines/Certification Requirements Cheat sheet/Checklist
The Noun Project, XAML’ified… or The Noun Project converted for you to XAML and PNG’s
“The Noun Project” + SVG + Free + Metro like look and feel + 500 = Happy Windows Phone 7 Developers