Honestly I would be happy with starting out learning how to create custom sized backgrounds with shading to make them 3-D like. As it is now, many of my backgrounds end up looking flat. I can use other people's backgrounds (and do manytimes), but sometimes the simply are not the right size.

I realize that is a pretty basic step in graphic creation - so it cannot be that difficult. I've even looked at some "How To" guides on the net, but many of them assume a user already knows how to do the "simple" stuff. I need the Graphics 101 version, or perhaps the precurser course to Graphics 101. :-)