Right. I wrote this up and did it quickly for someone on a forum a while ago on how to create a nice icon without needing to know every technical aspect of Photoshop :) I'll show 3 different ways to make an icon from one photo.

I used Photoshop CS2 for this but you can use any version.

Step 1: Take a photo of choice. Best if it has some type of background of it already, don't take away the original background.


First icon

This consisted of 3 layers (that's how the layers are set)-
Overlay (Opacity 50%)
Screen (Opacity 40%)
Base


Second icon

Layers-
Overlay (Opacity 80%)
Screen (Opacity...