Photoshop Icon Tutorial

So, here's my first icon tutorial going from:

Going from   to

Step 1:  Open a picture of whatever you want to use.  I used the lovely Brad Pitt for my icon. 

Step 2:  Resize your image to the size you want, in my case, 100x100. 

Step 3:  Sharpen your image.  For Photoshop users go to Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen.  It's important to sharpen your image so it isn't blurry.

Step 4:  Open a new layer and fill it with a dark blue.  I used #000E38.  Set that layer to 'Screen' at 100 % opacity.

Step 5:  Create a new layer and add a texture. I added this texture from colorfilter.  </span>

*Edit* The brush I used was this: From this site.

Since it was such a large brush I just used the curly cue at the top.