This is a little late - but I don't recall using photoshop to crop the photo into an oval. I believe I drew an Oval vector and used it as a boundary in Aspire. If you didn't figure it out yet, I can try and go back and see what I did. The finishing technique I used I believe is called a "glazing" technique. Basically I covered the sign in a sanding sealer, let it dry, then used a gel stain. It is helpful to have a rag around to wipe any excess stain away. After you get it to where you want and it dries, any excess stain can be sanded away (this is more so for the lettering and borders - you're not going to want to do any sanding in the Photo V Carve part). I used this same technique in the tequila cabinet that I did here http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15996 . For a top coat, I used spray polyurethane because I wasn't sure if they were going to keep it inside or outside.
You can find the glazing information on Vectric's website:
http://www.vectric.com/WebSite/Vectr...e_glazing.html
Ryan