Building the Static FreeImage libraries (correct as at FreeImage 3.8.0) Download FreeImage source code at http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/ For VC6: - Build the FreeImage static lib with MSVC project. - Copy the FreeImage.lib and FreeImage.h in the extlib directory. For Mingw: - I've not managed to build FreeImage under mingw yet (although it is supposed to be possible) For Cygwin: - Download Makefile.cygwin from http://freeimage.cvs.sourceforge.net/freeimage/FreeImage/ - Build the static lib (make -fMakefile.cygwin) - Copy the libFreeImage.a and FreeImage.h in the extlib directory, renaming libfreeimage.a to libfreeimage-cygwin.a