This question touches some of the crucial points in the Bible so a brief answer cannot cover all the details adequately. Since you asked us to go into detail the answer will not be just a few paragraphs. We will try to answer a little bit at a time rather than forcing you to wait for a long answer. At the same time we hope that you would not just accept what we write but would ask the Lord to reveal Himself through His Word. In other words, Bible study should not be to simply learn more about God but to bring us into a deeper relationship with Him. The things we discover in God's Word should be real and practical in our daily experience.
The obvious place to begin to study God's creation of man is with the record in Genesis chapters one and two. Genesis 1:26 says, "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." (Recovery Version) This verse touches both parts of your question, namely God's creation of man and His special relationship with us. There is no record that God had a council with Himself before creating anything else. He simply spoke and it came into being, thus exhibiting His eternal power and divine nature. So the fact that God paused in His work of creation to describe what He intended to do already begins to show that man is unique in God's creation.
The contents of this little council are especially significant because they reveal God's intention in creating man. There are two main aspects to God's intention for man which are expressed by the words "image" and "dominion". God certainly had something in mind when He decided to create man in His own image. An image is an expression of something else. For instance, a glove is made in the image of a hand. If you knew nothing about hands you could learn something about them by studying gloves. However, for the glove to express more than the mere outward for of the hand it needs a hand to be put into it. Then you would be able to observe the function as well as the form of the hand.
Similarly, God created man in His own image so that He could be expressed through man. You can learn something about God by observing man. For instance, man has thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc. So does God. In this sense every man expresses something of God but that expression is not very adequate. Both God and man have thoughts but they are not the same (Isa. 55:8-9; Psa. 94:11). The things men like and choose are also very different from the things God likes and chooses. The best man can produce is a refined human life expressing some highly developed human virtues. This is still far short of expressing God's divine attributes. Thus, created man is an empty "glove", created in God's image but not containing Him as life.
The second key word, "dominion", is related to the fact that God has a would be rival who is attempting to usurp God's position in the universe (Isa. 14:12-14). This rival, who first appears in the Bible in the form of a serpent, is seeking to overthrow God's kingdom and establish his own kingdom. Nevertheless, part of God's intention for man is that man would exercise God's authority and deal with God's enemy.
Thus, the first important detail concerning God's creation of man is His intention in doing it. God wants man to express Him and to represent Him on the earth.