Winner's Tutorial, Challenge #98, by arithilim

[ara]

I created my icon in Photoshop CS5 Extended, though it should definitely be translatable into at least other versions of photoshop.

Hope this is helpful to someone!
Step 1: The Base

 I started out with this base. Note the clockwise rotation from the original image. The slightly off angle draws attention.

Step 2: First Texture

I added this texture by ohfreckle over the base. I flipped it horizontally (Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal) and set it to soft light at 48% opacity.
This functions sort of like a gradiant and adds contrast between the sunject and the background to be built on later, while also adding shadow to the subject.

 +  =

Step 3: Texture the Second

Next I added this texture  by sweetxpie. I wanted the light effects in the right, but not over the subject, so I used my smudge tool at 50% strength to get rid of the streaks in the left.

 ->

Then I set this layer to overlay at 39% opacity. This starts to build the color and the light effect in the upper left.

 +  =

Step 4: Color!

I duplicated the smudged layer from the previous step to make the colors more vibrant and set it to overlay at 39% opacity.

 +  =

However, as you can see, this overly darkened the subject. To fix this I simply added a layer mask to the texture.  I quickly brushed black with a small soft round brush over the subject in the mask and voila, problem solved.

 + & =

Step 5: Glossify

Next I wanted to give my image a bit more definition, so I did the tried and true method: I duplicated my base, dragged it to the top, and set it to softlight 100% opacity.

 +  =

Step 6: Fix up the background

This is a nice start, but I definitely want to make my icon pop a bit more.  To do this, I wanted to separate the background from the subject. First I focused on the background.
I added a Brightness/Contrast adjusment layer, and increased the color and texture of the background by setting it to:

Brightness: -19
Contrast: 16

This made the background more pleasing.  But my subject was now messed up, so I masked it using the technique described in Step 4.

 + B/C Layer & =

Step 7: Now the Subject

Now I focused on the subject. I added another Brightness/Contrast adjusment layer, and increased the color and texture of the background by setting it to:

Brightness: 19
Contrast: 14

However, this washed out the hard-earned color, so I masked the colored bits.

 + B/C Layer &  =

Step 8: Pizazz

That's the basic icon done. Now I just needed to add a little somethin-somethin to it. I used this tiny text texture  by sweetxpie and set it to Multiply 100% opacity to get rid of the white background. Then I rotated and moved it to compliment the diagonal direction of the shoulder and the blinds.

 +  =

Step 9: Outline

Finally I wanted the subject to really stand out. To do this, I created a new layer, selected a semi-soft round brush (about 30% hardness, 5px in size) and traced white around the edge of my subject.  I did this fairly quickly, as it doesn't need to be uber-precise.

**Note, a similar effect can be obtained by selecting the subject (using quickselect, lasso, etc.) and converting the selection to a path, then right clicking on the path and selecting stroke. I reccomend this method if you have a more complex subject to outline**

 + outline layer =

And that is the final icon!

This is the first tutorial I have written, so please let me know if anything is unclear/confusing, etc. ^_^