Soft Brown Elijah Icon

Bear with me, this is my first tutorial...
Learn how to make this icon (I used Photoshop 8):





I started out with this image from http://always.ejwsites.net:


Next, I duplicated the layer, and went to Filter-->Blur-->Gaussian Blur, and set the pixel radius at 0.4.
I lowered the Opacity on this layer to 80%.


I created another new layer, set the mode to "Soft Light", and applied this gradient fill by crumblingwalls:

I set the Opacity of this layer at 75%.

I then applied this border by teh_indy:

I didn't apply it directly over the image, I first opened it seperately, clicked on the white part with the magic wand, then went to Select-->Inverse and then copy and pasted it into a new layer over my previous work:


Then, with the eyedropper, I selected a dark color from the image and, using the paintbucket, changed the black border to that color:


Next I created a new layer and applied this brush by crumblingwalls:


Next I set the Opacity to 15%, and there we go!


If you'd like to take this icon for yourself, please credit me. Also, please respond to let me know if this is a good tutorial and what you thought!