I really enjoyed making my first tutorial (which can be found here) and I thought I'd make another one!
We'll be turning this
into this 
using Photoshop (My version is Photoshop CS, but I'm sure it'll work OK with other versions.
1. First, we take our screen capture. I'm using this one of Elastigirl from The Incredibles. The screencap is one of
scofo's and the rest of them can be found here.
2. Next, using the crop tool, I select part of her face and shoulders. I then twirl the selection around a little bit to the right and press the Enter key on the keyboard. That leaves me with my base
3. I now duplicate the base, and sharpen it once (Filter -->Sharpen --> Sharpen). We want the base a bit brighter, so go to Image --> Adjustments --> Levels, and slide the arrow to the left, until you get it looking something like this
4. Next, I'm going to add some colour. I took this gradient bycrumblingwalls and set it to screen at 74%. That gives us this
5. I now want to brighten it up a bit, and add a bit of texture. So, I take this one fromoxoniensis and set it on Soft Light, 100% Opacity
6. I duplicate the texture, set it at Colour Burn and move the Opacity down to 74%. Then, take your Eraser Tool, and erase over her face.
7. When I was happy with that, I decided I didn't like how her red mask looked with the purple colouring of the icon. I wanted to warm the background up a bit. So, I took this gradient, again bycrumblingwalls and set it at Soft Light, 100%. Now, we've got this
8. Now, we've got a big empty space to fill. Woot. I took a brush frominxsomniax, which can be downloaded here. I kept the brush colour white, and put it on a new layer at Hard Light,100%. I then used the Move Tool to tilt it. When I was happy with the position, I duplicated the layer, and I got this
9. Just to see what effect it would have, I went down the the base layer, duplicated it, dragged it to the top of all the other layers, desaturated it and set it at Soft Light, 47%. I liked how it darkened the top of the icon slightly, so I kept it there. I now have this
10. Now, for the text. I decided to be boring, and just write in her superhero name, Elastigirl. I took the font "Decker", which can be found at DaFont and set the colour to white. I typed in "ELASTI" and kept the layer mode at normal, 100%.
11. I then took the default font Arial, typed in "GIRL" (font colour white, layer mode Normal, 100%) and duplicated it twice to make it bolder.
12. Almost done! For a finishing touch, I took one ofohpaintbrush's baby text brushes, added it in under my text (Normal layer mode, 100%), duplicated it.
13. That's it! Flatten your image (Layer --> Flatten Image), adjust brightness/contrast if you wish, and save your icon!
Feel free to take the finished icon, with credit to "_razorbladesky_". Hope this was helpful; any questions, feel free to ask :)
We'll be turning this
1. First, we take our screen capture. I'm using this one of Elastigirl from The Incredibles. The screencap is one of
scofo's and the rest of them can be found here.2. Next, using the crop tool, I select part of her face and shoulders. I then twirl the selection around a little bit to the right and press the Enter key on the keyboard. That leaves me with my base
3. I now duplicate the base, and sharpen it once (Filter -->Sharpen --> Sharpen). We want the base a bit brighter, so go to Image --> Adjustments --> Levels, and slide the arrow to the left, until you get it looking something like this
4. Next, I'm going to add some colour. I took this gradient by
crumblingwalls and set it to screen at 74%. That gives us this5. I now want to brighten it up a bit, and add a bit of texture. So, I take this one from
oxoniensis and set it on Soft Light, 100% Opacity6. I duplicate the texture, set it at Colour Burn and move the Opacity down to 74%. Then, take your Eraser Tool, and erase over her face.
7. When I was happy with that, I decided I didn't like how her red mask looked with the purple colouring of the icon. I wanted to warm the background up a bit. So, I took this gradient, again by
crumblingwalls and set it at Soft Light, 100%. Now, we've got this8. Now, we've got a big empty space to fill. Woot. I took a brush from
inxsomniax, which can be downloaded here. I kept the brush colour white, and put it on a new layer at Hard Light,100%. I then used the Move Tool to tilt it. When I was happy with the position, I duplicated the layer, and I got this9. Just to see what effect it would have, I went down the the base layer, duplicated it, dragged it to the top of all the other layers, desaturated it and set it at Soft Light, 47%. I liked how it darkened the top of the icon slightly, so I kept it there. I now have this
10. Now, for the text. I decided to be boring, and just write in her superhero name, Elastigirl. I took the font "Decker", which can be found at DaFont and set the colour to white. I typed in "ELASTI" and kept the layer mode at normal, 100%.
11. I then took the default font Arial, typed in "GIRL" (font colour white, layer mode Normal, 100%) and duplicated it twice to make it bolder.
12. Almost done! For a finishing touch, I took one of
ohpaintbrush's baby text brushes, added it in under my text (Normal layer mode, 100%), duplicated it.13. That's it! Flatten your image (Layer --> Flatten Image), adjust brightness/contrast if you wish, and save your icon!
Feel free to take the finished icon, with credit to "_razorbladesky_". Hope this was helpful; any questions, feel free to ask :)