Today, I have a new icon tutorial.
I'm gonna do it with a kitching's picture.

How to go from to

Done in Photoshop CS2


01. Duplicate your base and set it to screen 50% if it's not bright, i didn't do that 'cause my picture is bright.
02. Duplicate your base and set it softlight 20%
03. Color Balance
Midtones: 16, -2, 13
Shadows: -12, -6, -2
04. Creat a new selective colors layer
Reds: -100, 61, 80, -43
Yellows: 66, -37, -50, 70
Cyans: 14, 1, 14, 10
Neutrals: 12, -11, -14, -9
05. Duplicate your base and set it to softlight 60%
06. Desaturate your base
07. Creat the second selective colors layer
Neutrals: 24, -8, -24, -1
08. Creat a new hue/saturation layer and set saturation to +40
09. Creat a new Curves layer
Input: 74
Outout: 70
10. Creat a new Levels layer
Iput: 0, 1.02, 255

now you are done, i will be happy to see your result.