Real newbie in Photoshop requests help

[Varan]

Well, lately I got photoshop in my hands and I tried to make a few sigs. Frankly they are all . Recently I made this one: http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=qpacopymo6.jpg but I know that the font may not go with the pic and that the background is just plain black. Any suggestions as to which brush and what color should I use to make the background? I tries a few times to make a few strokes of the brush but they all looked like high quality crap ;].

Thx for the answers

P.S.
Do not remind me that this is crap ^^. I know it for 100%!

[0l3n]

ya its kinda plain, for the bakround u could make it a grey/whitish color maby using the gradient tool with some beige colors whill be good to. i suggest you blend the render if you are going with something like that, you can google for some good tutorials on blending if you dont know how.
what i understand your new to photoshop, so brushing whould probebly be the way to go. if you dont have any good brushes i suggest you downlouad some, http://www.deviantart.com is a good site for all kind of stuff concerning photoshop. you could try to mess around with the filters. well good luck

[Shox]

Look up some tutorials on sites like http://www.pixel2life.com or http://www.dutchdesignz.com . Pixel2life has bazillions of good tuts to get started with sigs.

[ThisIsChris]

http://www.silkroadforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=18446
Try that, a basic tutorial made by me.

[Snudge]

^don't do what that there says, better beginneer tuts out there, in the ocean
You'll hear this alot more, whenever you stroke a render, NEVER, and then NEVER use the yellow-whitish color. It sucks

[senapanaga]

or you can just toy around unil you see somehting you like. *cough*.

As in my sigs, which may or may not suck, I like them either way.

[Varan]

Thx guys! I really learned something from the links. As to Chris, I learned how to use the magic wand thx to that tut (I did say "real newbie") . Anyway thx!