hey im wondering al you people that make those good sigs, what effects do you use the most? like Filter, Render,Sketch,Texture, etc.

Render. Far away!.

Brushing, text, and renders are the most effectively used effects when working with signature design in my opinion. Renders work well with a character or person in your signature to base your sig on, and text adds to the class and quality of it, while naming it's author. Brushes are the overall design, and they add the background usually, if the backgrounds aren't filtered. Don't be a filter overuser! Fitlers often look bad when you use them, it's best to brush.

I agree partially (especially on using filters. I rarely EVER use filters) but I just wanted to note a few things. You really don't need renders, brushing, or text. I can make an awesome sig without any (or a combination, even) of those. Not saying that I don't like using those though. Renders, text, and brushing are an important part of my sigs, even if I don't NEED them.

But yeah, filters bite. Don't use filters. Ever.

I personally think the most important part of a sig is color. Even if it's black and white with a certain element colored (like below), color is still very important.

Filters are usually something you want to stay away from when creating sigs. There's many people out there that just go crazy with filters and make a sig out of that, but it doesn't look half as good as a sig that was brushed. Don't get me wrong, filters are handy and are extremely helpful, but they are mainly used for the likes of photo editing and texturing. The only filter I use with most of my grunge sigs are clouds.

Johnny: How is it possible to make a sig without even touching the brush tool? o_O

One of many examples would be pixel stretch, my friend. ^-^

(I use cloud filters a bit too, on my color balance layers' masks for multicolor sigs)

Yeah I use clouds for multiple color balances as well....you get a better effect then a simple gradient...as for pixel stretch, I know how to do it but I've never seen a single time when it would be used so i've never really given it a try

Well sometimes doing some filters on a background is nice, or if you have a specific effect you want to get with filters, like textured backgrounds or whatnot. I know with lots of tutorials where you make patterns etc, filters play a big part.

Pixel stretch is being whored currently, anyway, so I would recommend staying away from it.

With Fireworks, GIMP and Photo Studio 2000 (ArcSoft) I like to use drop shadows and glows for the text. As for images...rendering all the way plus I like the horizontal line effect to make it look like a TV screen image. At the same time, I'll experiment to see what other effects I can create. You never kow until you take the time to play around with any graphics program to see what it can do.