and >>AFTER: 
}-------
> 1. I started with this picture of Ian Somerhalder (mmm, yes, he is pretty). I cropped it down to my liking, played with the contrast/saturation... I think I sharpened a bit as well. Anyway, adjust the picture entirely to your personal liking. I did, and ended up with a base:
>> 2. I then added this brush
by
ownthesunshine, in white, and set it to normal, opacity to 80% (you can flip it around however you need to in order to fit the cropping of your picture). We now get this:
> 3. I then added this texture
(I don't remember who this is by, sorry!) and set it to hard light, opacity 74% (don't ask me why I picked 74...) Again, you can flip this around or rotate it if it better suits your picture. So we now have this:
>> 4. To finish the icon, I cropped out a piece of my base that was the exact shape of the giant white rectangle on the right. I moved the cropped piece over the white rectangle, made it black and white, and set it to normal, opacity 50%. I got this:
And you're done! Sometimes I like to merge all (flatten), duplicate the flattened base, and play with the top layer. You can keep it as is, or set it to burn:
Screen:
Multiply:
Just play with it! :P It's a fairly basic tutorial, so you can also probably add in other brushes and gradients and such, but I like it as is!
Some other icons I made in the same method:
And I'd love to see what you come up with! This is my first tutorial, so i hope it's helpful! :o)
