In 1999, the United States Mint began to put out a series of commemorative coins celebrating all of the 50 states. The idea was to select an iconic landmark, person, or event for each state and place it on each coin on the other side of a new profile picture of George Washington. It was an immediate hit among collectors and in fact was later expanded to include Washington, D.C. and all of the territories. (For more information on the program, visit statequarterguide.com.)
I then had the idea of replacing Washington's face on the North Carolina coin with that of Buddy Wayne Barefoot. This coin would be for collection only and would not be accepted as legal tender at any retail store or other location. It turned out to be a harder task than I thought, and even now I don't know if the result is acceptable. However, given what I had to work with as it relates to Photoshop, this is as good as it got.
I began by taking B.W.'s face and resizing it to fit approximately the size of the profile of Washington. I also had to position it so as not to cover up two very important elements: the word "LIBERTY" on one side and the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" on the other. After that, I tried to "stamp" the face to match how "the father of our country" is depicted on the real coin. Just to get close to that, I needed six different effects layers within "buddyface": Bevel & Emboss, Inner Shadow, Inner Glow, Satin, Gradient Overlay, and Pattern Overlay.
You can judge how I did by looking at before and after.
BEFORE
AFTER
The source of the original photo is at this address.
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