Manga Tutorial

When I made this icon I was really pleased with it and considered making a tutorial, but after it tied for first place at furuba_chorus, I decided to go ahead with it. ^__^ It's actually a really nice effect but I haven't seen it in many places before... especially as there are very few manga icon tutorials around.

I used Paint Shop Pro 7 (so outdated...) and this is the icon I'll be showing you how to make:

1. Take your base. This is mine:

Momiji and Tohru! Yay.

2. I duplicated my base and set the new layer to Burn at 25%. This darkens it a little but not too much.

3. Next I added a this border (made by me) on a new layer in white.

Obviously, you can't see the border very well at this stage since it's white.

4. Next I pasted these two gradients (by me, again xD) on a new layers and set the first one to Soft Light at 100%, and the second one to Soft Light at 50%.

5. Now these next couple of stages are what really makes me like this icon. ^__^;; Anyway, I took this lovely texture which I believe is by dearest:</span>