[philadelphia killing mach]

head up has the right idea on the gradual fade for the one on the left . looks like you used a soften the edges function which always comes out as a square if you go beyond 5-6 clicks.

try fading via a fish-eye (brighter in a circle fashion in the middle ) or fade left to right for the left hand image and right to left on the right image (both images would have a brighter part nearer the edges and faded to blend in the middle )

as for the text, you can keep it but you need at least a better font. i can't stress enough that the font (color, style and fader) sells any image no matter how bad the picture is. i can spend about ten minutes working on the image itself and sometimes up to an hour figuring out how i want the text to look. just screw around with different font types (i would suggest bank gothic md bt for your sig) and then go to color and then adding shaders and or fading.


[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/killerlegs76/sigtestonecopy.png[/img]

and for the record, i don't use photosh*t software, just plain and basic ole microsoft picture it ! 2002 for all my sigs, images, textures, skins....
some people like photoshop, i don't. i enjoy 'tricking the software' into doing what i want it to do .