There are many tutorials out there that show you how to make folder icons in Adobe Illustrator. I made this tutorial because I'm not too familiar with Illustrator and I'm sure a lot of other people aren't either. Of course, if you are trying to make an icon, you should really use Illustrator or some other vector-based program to avoid pixellation when resizing to/from icon sizes.   That said, beggar's can't be choosers, and if you want to create Windows XP-style icons solely in Photoshop, then this is how you do it!

Step 1: Create a new blank document 500px by 300px in size at 300dpi with a single transparent background layer. The canvas should be a little bit bigger than the folder, but we can always crop it later. Change your foreground colour to something light - I used #FFF000 since we're going to be working with the colours of a standard office folder. Then select the Pen Tool and make sure the 'Shape Layers' and 'Create a New Shape Layer' options are selected.  The image below will give you a general idea where to find these options, except there may be slight variations with the layout depending on your version of Photoshop.

Step 2: Our folder will have two parts - The front and back.  For ease of construction, we'll make the back first. Rename your document's first layer to something like 'Back'. Now try and go over the basic shape of a folder by pointing and clicking appropriately with the Pen Tool (do NOT click+drag). You can see the different anchor points on mine if you need a visual example. With the basic polygonal shape drawn we can give the 'tab' of our folders proper curved edges.  To do this, switch to the Convert Anchor Point Tool and click-drag the upper points to get the curves. You should hold SHIFT on your keyboard while you do this to keep the non-curved parts straight. Step 3: Right-Click on your layer and select Blending Options. Add a Gradient Overlay from #FDF892 to #FFD826 (as shown in the image to the left). Make sure the Style is set to Radial, that the 'Align with Layer' checkbox is checked, and that Scale is set to 141%.  Now comes a tricky part! After you put in the above settings, you have to drag the gradient somewhere in the highlighted spot (It should look like the center of the gradient is in that spot). When you are finished, and before you leave the Blending Options dialog, go to the Stroke section and add a 3px stroke with a colour of #FBCE00 and 'Outside' positioning. Press OK.  Your folder should now look something like this:

Step 4: Now let's do the front. Layer > Duplicate the Back layer and rename it Front (a big surprise there with the nomenclature!). Make the duplicate active in the layers palette and choose Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal from the main menu to create a mirror image.   Go back to the Convert Anchor Point Tool and CTRL+SHIFT+Click the two center anchor points. Then press CTRL+T and drag to the left until the points are a bit left of the center.

Step 5: Okay! Now that we have our folder we have to "change the perspective" a little. For the rest of this tutorial I have used an example XP folder image that I found on Google images. Strangely enough, it's from an Illustrator tutorial for making this folder. Anyway, getting back to the point, I'm going to use it as a guide for the folder perspective... So I crop it, transfer a copy over to the main document, put it on top of the other folder layers and lower the layer Opacity to ~75%.

Step 6: I know that looks like a mess, but this guide makes it really easy to finish this project.  Using Edit > Transform > Distort, position the corners of the folder with the corresponding corners of the example folder. You may need to re-adjust some of the anchor points, but after you finish cleaning it up (and adjust both the Front & Back layers), your folder should look much better!

Step 7: Now hide/delete your 'guide' layer, drop the Opacity of the Front Layer down to about 80%, and your done! You can add a background, trim off the excess space, and add further details if you are feeling a little more adventurous.  Have fun!  :) Completed Folder  Completed Folder w/ A Few Extra Details

- Tutorial written by Phileplanet

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