Becky,

Addressing the second part of your question first using the word 'draw' may not have been the best choice of words.  You are not 'drawing' anything on the image like you would with the paint tool.  Clicking the center of the pupil and dragging the mouse to the iris edge displays a line on the screen.  The start and end point that you are defining tells the computer where the white of your gradient starts and then where it finishes with the transition though to black.  By manually adjusting the layer mask you can have tighter control over what part of your reflection image you want visible.  In the image of the tutorial which displays the red of the layer mask you will see that the channels tab is open and the layer mask selected and active.  If you click on the eye icon of the top RGB channel and turn its visibility off and leave the eye icon visible on the layer mask you will see that the only image on screen is the layer mask which is all black with a white spot.  If you feel that your reflection image is two cloudy it may be that not enough white is defined on the layer mask.  To correct this just use your paint tool and adjust the brush size to about half the radius of the existing white spot and adjust the softness of the brush and then paint a white dot in the middle of the existing one.  Now make the RGB channel visible and turn off the layer mask to see what changes have been made.  If you find that the reflection image has now 'bled' over part of the eyelid then just paint on the layer mask in black where the eyelid is.  Once the layer mask is as good as you can get it the next adjustments are made as described in the tutorial by using a levels adjustment layer.  Blending modes can also make a difference.   A neat trick is to select the reflection image layer (not the level adjustment layer) and click on the blending mode window (which is probably displaying 'normal').  This opens all the blending options.  If you click the window again then the window is selected.  If you now roll your middle mouse button you will cycle through each of the blending modes giving you a fast way of checking the effect of each mode.  You will probably find that the 'screen' mode gives a good result for the eye reflection.

Shane

Glad the tutorial has been useful.  If you guys are anything like me then you have more saved tutorials on your hard drive, USB drives, DVDs etc than you could use in 3 lifetimes.

Shane

The before and after.  I hope this was the type of effect that you were after and this has been of some use to you.

Shane

Adjust the sliders to bring out the highlights of the new reflection layer.  You can also make additional adjustments to the opacity, or blending modes if needed.  You can also go back to the layer mask in Channels if needed and make some fine adjustments to your mask.

Now go back to your layers tab.  Add a Levels adjustment layer and then a clipping mask layer to confine the levels adjustment to the new reflection layer. 

With the selection still active make sure the reflection layer is selected and press ctrl+j (layer via copy).  Hide or delete the original reflection layer.  Now click on "Add Layer Mask' to the new reflection layer.  With the new reflection layer selected select the Channels tab and select the New Reflection Layer Mask.  Select a radial gradient that goes from white to black and then draw a line with the mouse from the center of the pupil to the edge of the iris.If required you can use the brush to paint with either white to show more of the new reflection layer or black to hide more.  By hiding or showing the New Reflection Layer Mask you can see the effect your changes are having on the source image.

Change the opacity of the reflection layer so you can see the eye of your source image underneath. Move the relection image around or resize it until you have the part of the relection image that you want to use.  Create a circular selection of the pupil and iris of the eye. 

Copy and Paste the reflection image onto the source image.  Resize and postion the reflection image to your choosing.  I prefer to do it this way rather than make a circular selection of the reflection image first and then pasting if to the source image because this way allows you to make adjustments to the size and placement of your reflection image whilst being able to see it in context with the eye.

Bjbganiere - I've put together this mini tut to show one way of a adding a reflection to an eye. 

Source Pictures.
I have flattened out the existing reflections and highlights in the eye of this source picture to make the end result clearer.  For your reflection image I would suggest something with contrasting colours.

Try using the displace filter.  Here is a link to a tutorial that explains how to use it for what you want to achieve.

Displace Filter Tutorial

Shane

Attached Link: Bibble Lite/Pro

If your interested in working with RAW files then you may want to look at this bit of software.

Shane

Looking at the list of software you have you certainly have a mixed bag.   This is the way that I would approach your situation.   The key point you ask is 'where to start'.  The software you have listed approach the production of an imge from different directions.  You can either paint or draw your picture with a 2d application (photoshop, illustrator, freehand) or construct your picture using a 3d application (povray, virtual light, DAZ Studio).  In the end its all about your picture not really what you used to create it. Others will have a different point of view but in relation to the software that is basically what it comes down to.  That being the case decide where your artistic strength is.  If you decide to paint your picture I would advise learning photoshop first and then illustrator because they are complimentary to each other in that the program functions and pallets are the same or similar and located in the same or similar places on each of the programs interfaces.  If you plan to go the 3d path then look at the other programs I listed above.  Another bit of advice is don't try to learn a bit of all of them, you will just confuse and frustrate yourself.  Got to the webpages of the programs developers to see what each can do as well as the galleries of these sites to see what people have done with them.

My bottomline advice as to 'where to start' is to choose photoshop.  My experience is that which ever path you choose you will probably want to correct, manipulate, adjust your final piece of artwork and you can't beat photoshop to do these things.

Shane

This is a bit off topic from your original question being to flip a half of a face but if you take this process a step further and use you original selection and horizontal mirror and then mirror these two selections vertically you have a nice tileable texture.

Shane

Try this appoach.

1. Using your rectangular selection marquee select the half of the image you want to mirror.
2. Goto Layer>New>Layer via copy.
3. On the new layer press ctrl+T (transform shortcut).
4. If you look closely you will see in the center of the transform selection a tiny crosshair.
5. With your mouse drage this to the edge of your selection.  It should snap into place at the edge.  This becomes your pivot point for the mirror.
6. Goto Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal.
7. Press enter and your done!!

You can turn this into an action by making your initial selection as in 1. above and then start recording your action for the remaining instructions 2 - 7.  This way you can achieve a single click mirror like you are used to in PSP.

Shane

You should check this program out.  Its called Comic Book Creator and will do everything you need from setting up your panels, using your own art images, creating word balloons etc.

http://www.mycomicbookcreator.com/frontpage.php

Shane