This tutorial/walkthrough has been written for Photoshop 5.5 - it should also work for v.7 with minor adjustment. The first step uses Photoshop exclusively.
The Agamemnon mask file can be downloaded as a zip file for those who wish to trial the background as it appears in the tutorial.
Below are the two original raw images from which the composite button above was created. They have been reduced in size for display here. As the tutorial was developed in sections at different times, it has not been possible to keep all example images consistent. They do, however, reflect a common process.
My original idea was to create a decorative button which I could use as a navigational device. I needed an image with an antique flavour to feature on a contrasting textured surface (grey button background). I found the image I needed in a book gathering dusk on one of my bookshelves. I only wanted to use a very small section, namely the face, earrings and neck.
| Step 1 | As I needed to establish a relative size for the overall button, the face/earrings/neck layer needed to be dealt with first. I increased the magnification of the area I wanted to use using the zoom tool  .
Using the magnetic lasso  The initial selection was a little crude and would need cleaning. As well, the lasso had cut inwards a little too deeply so that needed fixing. The latter was easily done by modifying the current selection. In the menu bar: Select > Modify > Expand. I expanded the selection by one pixel. Then Control + C to make a copy of the selection. I opened a new document - File > New - making sure that I selected the transparent option at the base of the dialogue box. The size of the new file always reflects the copied selection and so correct dimensions were already in place. As I like to have room to move, I enlarged the size a little.  Then Control + V to paste the selection into the new document. The grey and white checkerboard patterning indicates that the image sits on a transparent layer.  The face was usable as it stood but not as slick as I wanted. I magnified the edges and cleaned them up using the eraser tool
   Final adjustments made: the neck was shortened, smoothed and rounded a little; a highlight eliminated at the corner of the mouth (clone tool); the irises of the eyes changed: the eyedropper tool
The next task is to use Layer > Effects > Bevel and Emboss to enhance the existing 3D quality of the face/earrings and neck.  In the dialogue box above I made sure that the the Inner Bevel was set to -90 degrees as I needed shadowing at the top of face to complement the cast shadows on the button layer. Then it was just a matter of hitting apply and saving the result. As you can see in the Layers palette below, the image sits on a single transparent layer.  The face layer is now finished. The background layer is next.  With the exception of Agamemnon's mask and the mummy case
all content © Lise Kool 2004 AncientWorlds ~ the online history community  |
(located in the upper section of the toolbar with the other selection tools), I traced around the edge of the section I wanted. The magnetic lasso is an ideal selection tool to use when edge contrast is great such as was the case here.
in paintbrush mode. Double-clicking on the tool in the tool bar will make the eraser options pop up - then specific eraser types can be chosen.
used first which allowed me to snitch (or sample) a dark tone/colour from one of the eyebrows, then the paintbrush 
was used to paint in the irises; obvious spots were removed with the cloning tool 
to maintain surface integrity and the image scaled down - Edit > Transform > Scale.