Cursors Help

How To Create Cursors

Cursors on Windows XP and Windows Vista currently support a size of 32×32 pixels only. Color depth can be up to 32-bit which means cursors can be alpha-transparent.
So to create a cursor you first create a 32×32 pixels sized image in Photoshop or whatever your preferred image editor is. For an animated cursor you´ll need an image for each frame. After that you use a cursor editor that allows you to make a CUR (or ANI) file.

A free cursor editor, that supports alpha-transparent animated cursors, is Real World Cursor Editor
An other free cursor editor, that also supports alpha-transparent animated cursors, is AniTuner

Shareware: ArtCursors , Axialis AX Cursors

Another simpler method for making cursors is to use GIMP (it may also work in photoshop; not sure). Make a 32×32 pixel image with a transparent background and draw your cursor in it. Save the file as a Windows Icon (.ico), then manually change the filetype to .cur.

This method won’t handle animated cursors though, and you can’t use it to edit cursors even if you change the filetype to .ico first.