Photo retouching

[darkemagick]

I'm trying to turn a grainy photo into an icon, but I'm having big problems with retouching it. Is there any tutorial which teaches you how to retouch photos completely?

I remembered there was a tutorial not so long ago about creating the smooth skin look by smudging, but I can't find it. Any advice on how to get rid of the graininess would also be helpful.

Thanks!