How to go from
to
Made using PS9 but easily translatable, uses no selective colour or curves.
Very easy tutorial.
=First prepare your base, crop and sharpen/smooth if needed.
=Now duplicate your base and desaturate it. Then apply a gaussian blur to this layer at 2 or 3 pixels, whichever looks best.
=Now duplicate your base and drag it to the top, set this to soft light at 100% opacity.
=Duplicate that previous soft light layer but now change the opacity to 30%.
=Now add a new layer and fill with #030042 and set to exclusion at 30%.
=Add another new layer and fill with #ffd6b6 and set to soft light at 50%
=Finally add another new layer and fill with #966b4a and set to soft light 100%
Thats your icon finished. If you try it I'd love to see your results.
Other examples: