Making headers

[corksil]

Hello all, I am working on a website, and I have been looking around a good deal at different headers, and I am wondering what the tools used for making headers are. I use photoshop and image editing software - the usual, but I was wondering there were any programs designed for making headers. Photoshop yields good enough results, but I get tired of seeing some flashy text, some gradients, and maybe a picture thrown in with the opacity turned down.

I can make good enough headers that do the trick, but how do people go about making headers that look like these? What is the software program/technique I am not using?

http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/games/PC/gur...v3/headtop.jpg
http://www.frozencpu.com/images/template/1_th_2.jpg
I am talking about the odd shapes and things, like the dots and stuff in the second link. Is that just a lot of photoshop effort?

[rspassey]

I'm pretty sure that's all photoshop.

[tetsuo]

I'm pretty sure that's all stuff that requires effort.

Oh, bother.

But I think Xara and maybe ULead's stuff would have some semi-ready templates to work with though. I use ULead's Cool 3D for different stuff.

[rspassey]

Photoshop is very powerful, it just takes time to create nice looking banners and images. What I do when working on a website project for school or fun is just throw together a simple banner at first so that I can get at working stie together, then later come back and spend time revamping teh graphics.

[mairving]

Neither of those were created in Photoshop. They are first created in your mind, then you can use a tool like Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks or whatever to create them. First figure out what you want them go about creating it.

[corksil]

I should be more specific. Does anyone have any experience with making this sort of graphic in Photoshop?

- or -

If you were to go about making this graphic, what program would you select to use?

http://www.phpbb.com/styles/forum/te...logo_right.jpg

[hobey19]

i use photoshop, but mairving is right, you can't just jump in expecting to get a graphic out of it. there is a lot of planning involved, otherwise you will be starting over a lot. if you aren't familiar with any of the programs, then it really doesn't matter which one you pick, but none of them are cheap, so whichever one you go with should be the one you plan on sticking with.

craig