Everything I have tried only leads to a distorted image.
What do you all use and what type compression do you use?
Any tips?

Are you talking about the little graemlins and posting icons like this ?

I would say probably just simply MS Paint would work best to design it, because it has the simplest pixel-level editing. Since Win98SE (or Win98 Plus from First edition), Paint has been able to save in .GIF. As long as you stick with the major colors, you shouldn't have any problems. If you do run into problems, use Paint to design it, and then save it with a more specialized .GIF program like Animagic .

Hope this helps.

---Skorpion

I would say whatever you do, start small and stay small, sounds like you're making a larger image, and then trying to resize.. Instead, start with the size you intend to end with, takes some practise working that small, but you'll get there in the end.. Just zoom up and down a lot to see the results you're getting. Try taking a close llook at other smilies you like too, see how they get the effects they do (working in small sizes there are a few techniques it's good to master

What if you start with a large image and want to reduce it down to a small size like 15x15?

resize :x... I reccommend photoshop and imageready myself ...

For everything I've done with smilies (and everything else image-related for that matter ), I used Paint Shop Pro 8 and Animation Shop 3, both available from Jasc Software .