2nd Tutorial, PSCS, easily translated to all programs
How to go from this to 
1. Take the cap and crop it to your liking, I find that for this particular icon style it is beneficial to have your object to the side as opposed to centered.
I chose this cropping:
2. Not that surprisingly, it's nowhere near bright enough so duplicate the base three times and set all three layers to screen at 100% opacity, flatten/merge (depending on your personal preference) the image.
3. Filter > Sharpen >> Unmask Sharpen... play with the levels, I used:
Amount: 50%
Radius: 2.0 pixels
Threshold: 5 levels
The image should now look something like this:
4. Duplicate your new base and Image > Adjustments >> Desaturate
Which leaves you with this:
This is good but I think that more contrast would help so on to step 5.
5. I prefer to use an adjustment layer because it is easier to adjust later on it you need to but if you absolutely can't stand adjustment layers/your program doesn't have them Image > Adjustments >> Selective Color gives the same effect.
For those of you using adjustment layers:
and select Selective Color... from the menu that pops up.
Either way the following menu will pop up:
See the dropdown menu that is set to black (it's default is red) in the cap I took, click on it and change it to white, since this picture is in B&W only the black level needs adjusting, to get the pale areas of the pic paler slide the slider to your left, into, it should be a negative %, play with it until you like what you see, mine is set at -70%. Now to get the dark areas darker select black from the dropdown menu now move the black slider to the right until you get a coloring your happy, I find about 70% is good. after that is done click on OK.
You should now have something that looks like this:
6. take the this texture
by fangirls_inc and Image > Rotate Canvas >> 180 degrees, then Image > Rotate Canvas >> 90 degrees CCW so you end up with
.
7. It was at this point I realized (after trying the next step) that the icon would work better if Amy was on the opposite side of the pic so Image > Rotate Canvas >> Flip Horizontal.
8. Copy and Paste the texture onto the icon and set it to screen at 80% move it around so it's not covering Amy's face flatten/merge and your done!
Your palette should look like this:
(you won't have the selective color layer if you didn't use it.)
If you are confused about anything just ask, I'd love to see your results if you try it out.
Other examples:
...
1. Take the cap and crop it to your liking, I find that for this particular icon style it is beneficial to have your object to the side as opposed to centered.
I chose this cropping:
2. Not that surprisingly, it's nowhere near bright enough so duplicate the base three times and set all three layers to screen at 100% opacity, flatten/merge (depending on your personal preference) the image.
3. Filter > Sharpen >> Unmask Sharpen... play with the levels, I used:
Amount: 50%
Radius: 2.0 pixels
Threshold: 5 levels
The image should now look something like this:
4. Duplicate your new base and Image > Adjustments >> Desaturate
Which leaves you with this:
This is good but I think that more contrast would help so on to step 5.
5. I prefer to use an adjustment layer because it is easier to adjust later on it you need to but if you absolutely can't stand adjustment layers/your program doesn't have them Image > Adjustments >> Selective Color gives the same effect.
For those of you using adjustment layers:
and select Selective Color... from the menu that pops up.
Either way the following menu will pop up:
See the dropdown menu that is set to black (it's default is red) in the cap I took, click on it and change it to white, since this picture is in B&W only the black level needs adjusting, to get the pale areas of the pic paler slide the slider to your left, into, it should be a negative %, play with it until you like what you see, mine is set at -70%. Now to get the dark areas darker select black from the dropdown menu now move the black slider to the right until you get a coloring your happy, I find about 70% is good. after that is done click on OK.
You should now have something that looks like this:
6. take the this texture
by fangirls_inc and Image > Rotate Canvas >> 180 degrees, then Image > Rotate Canvas >> 90 degrees CCW so you end up with
.
7. It was at this point I realized (after trying the next step) that the icon would work better if Amy was on the opposite side of the pic so Image > Rotate Canvas >> Flip Horizontal.
8. Copy and Paste the texture onto the icon and set it to screen at 80% move it around so it's not covering Amy's face flatten/merge and your done!
Your palette should look like this:
(you won't have the selective color layer if you didn't use it.)
If you are confused about anything just ask, I'd love to see your results if you try it out.
Other examples:
...