We are going from this: to: and with PSPX, but I'm sure it's backwards compatible (as well as with PS)



First we'll start of with our base image, from IHJ Media.

Crop it as desired, but don't resize it yet.

First thing I do once cropping an image, if it's a movie cap, is run the Digital Camera Noise Removal. This depends greatly on he quality of your image, but here's my settings for this image.

Next is curves. I'm not going to go into great detail with this, since once again it depends on your image, and there are a couple great curves tutorials out there already.

First, let's brighten up the image. I adjusted the RGB channel with these settings.

Next we want to remedy the heavy blue tint of the image - we do this by adding some red and taking out some blue. I'll link you to what my three other curves parts look like:

Blue - I dropped the amounts severly.
Red - Added only a little for this icon - taking out the blue did well enough for my tastes.
Green - The finished icon has a bit of a green tint, and I did that by adding some green back here.

Now we are finally ready to resize and sharpen.

Resize your icon to 100x100 and flatten it. When I sharpen, I duplicate the layer, then choose 'Sharpen More'. I then use the opacity slider to find the perfect amount of sharpness. I used 36%, but once again, it all depends on your image. Flatten layers.

So far I have this:


Now the hard stuff is over - it's pretty easy now. This is what my layers looked like:



And for what feels like the billionth time - it all depends on your image. You may have to increase the opacity of the screen layer, of lower the opacity of the second softlight layer. Different colors of multiply and exclusion can help too.

If you need help with anything, feel free to ask. If I wasn't clear or you arn't sure how to do something, I'll be happy to help as best I can.