Icon Tutorial - Using Texture

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Part One:
I'm usually not a lover of textures. I prefer simple icons, but for the interest of learning how to make a variety of the kind, textures are a common trade. But I also believe in icon preparation before applying the texture. The texture is there to heighten the image, or create a more dramatic look. That's why I begin by suggesting not to cover your subject's face with the texture. That's 101 in my book.

Step One - I chose an image of Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff as an icon base. Despite that my picture is going to be predominantly solid-colored, it still has to be prepared. It's too blue. Part one of this tutorial will show how to get rid of the blue tones and give off warm colors instead. From there, part two will cover the appliance of texture. I wrote this tutorial for intermediates, so I expect everyone knows how to use the tools I mentioned above. I won't tell you how, I'll just explain why I chose the methods I did.

First step is to get your subject selected and away from the background. Use any tool you're comfortable with to do this. I prefer the Poly Lasso Tool, and using that I just cut Ernie away from the background. I shifted him to the side of the icon to create more crop perspective and proceeded to clean up and sharpen where needed.

You can defrine (Enhance->Adjust Color->Defrine Layer) if your subject's outline becomes too pixeled. It will clean it up a little bit. You can keep your background if you need to. I wanted mine to only have the subject, because I will apply my own background later. I cannot do so right now, because the next steps will mess up the coloring of the background if I did. Judging if your icon is as blue as mine is, start with a Color Fill. Fill it with a beige color and set this to multiply. This gives the bases you need for achieving skin tone.

Step Two - Create a Levels layer. If you're reading this as a beginner and don't understand Levels, I would suggest looking up tutorials that have explained the tool first.

Channel RGB: Input Levels 11, 1.08, 227. What this means is that you need to create some heavy focus on your lights from the white input arrow. But don't undermine the shadows.
Channel Red: Input Levels 0, 1.06, 223. Reds have to be bumped up to take over from the blue. The cyan can be left alone, you have enough cool colors as it is. There's no need to boost that up.
Channel Blue: Input Levels 4, 1.00, 225. Leave the white input arrow alone. Your ultimate tool here is the black input arrow, where your yellows will overpower those blues.

If you only just punched those numbers in (a lot of you just like to do that), I gave my reasons why with them. My first Levels layer is always just to give a basic idea on what else I need to build up on. I will not give away the numbers on the second Levels layer to follow later, but the idea is exactly the same as what I mentioned above. Keep to your lights, reds, and yellows.

Step Three - Next, create another Color Fill, but this time keep it to Soft Light. You're going to secure your skin tone by selecting a light brown color. Not too bright, or clearly it will blind you, but not too dark or your shadows will cast over. My opinion, keep close to the grays. Your neutrals, armed with a bit of skin tone colors (beiges, reds, yellows, browns), set to Soft Light can do the work of selective coloring when used sparringly.

Now make your second Levels layer, and take the reasons I mentioned above from the previous Levels. Keep to your lights, reds, and yellows. It's not difficult at all, but this step depends soley on what your icon looks like and its quality. My numbers won't help you a bit, and you got the general idea from the numbers mentioned above.

Step Four - Create a Gradient Map layer and set it to Soft Light, around half opacity. Again, I wrote this tutorial assuming you know how to use the tool and what it does. Word of advice, if you're not comfortable with the tool, don't use it. You can see from the icon I'll list below as to which tool you can use to achieve the same effect without it. If you do know how to use Gradient Map and are comfortable enough with it, I have always been a big fan of the spectrums, orange-blue, violet-orange, and red-yellow, especially when I'm working on improving skin tones. They're excellent colors to achieve this. But, custom colors also work. For mine, a yellow-black took care of it nicely.

Viola. This part of the tutorial took an overly blue icon and managed to actually make presentable skintones out of it. I went through this mainly to show how this is done, because this part can be used separately to make other types of icons. Now on to part two.

Part Two:
Get your background ready. I chose something I created myself, something that would go with my Hufflepuff theme. Now duplicate the icon you have been working on, making certain to merge all of the layers into a solid, new icon. Copy that, and paste it on top of your background. Get rid of the solid color surrounding your subject (magic wand tool should handle it). Start from there.

Step One - Make a Brightness/Contrast layer. Use this to make the icon brighter and up the contrast to distinct the subject apart from the background. Set to Normal, you should know that it does not take too much to accomplish a good look. Mine were only +13 and +12. I usually keep the brightness and contrast close together in numbers, unless an image is really dark and calls for more.

The next step has multiple options of achieving the effect. I chose going with Gradient Map, set to Normal. Make the image black/white, but keep the opacity around 80%. I'm not going to throw all of that work down the drain, you needed to make the skintones for a later step. But, for what I planned on making out of this icon, I needed black/white.

Step Two - Now, pick out your texture. For my example, I chose this, I chose a black grunge brush applied to a white background. Making certain the areas did not cover my subject's face, I pasted it onto the icon and set it at Multiply.

Grunge textures are very simple to make and use, and that's why I chose it. You will need to choose whatever goes well with your icon for whatever type of effect you're choosing. But, after this, create another Color Fill layer, set to Color at half-opacity. The color you choose, again, depends on your icon. To go with my subject, I chose a drab, dark yellow to cast a flat tone across the image.

Step Three - Duplicate your backround and bring it to the top. Set it to Color Dodge, and cut out around the area of the subject. Now duplicate your subject and bring it to the top. Keep it at Normal. Lower both opacities down below half-opacity.

Now finish off by adding your text, if you want any. Now, to prove I did not waste your time with the first part of the tutorial, here is what would have happened if you just started out with the texture part without icon preparation. Compare: 
 to .
I hope this helped.