Profile Layout help?

[Gravity Kitten]

I'm tired of wasting all my credits for a nice layout; not that it matters.. but I've been experimenting with Photoshop cs3 for a week now. So far I've made a couple banners and shared with others. I'm not a brilliant guy, but I've gotten some requests and I have nothing better to do. To speed it up, I basically just need some tips on make a nice profile layout. I've tried to make it 960px x 200px and edited it with some fancy brushes. I zoomed up and it was a little pixelated, so I'm pretty much screwed now. Jpg. or Png? Also, if anyone wants to send me a .psd of an example (old ones, or blank; just to get the hang of it, etc) that'd be awesomesauce-erific.
Reach me @ my AIM: Gravity Unicorn

halp.
<3