Now this won't hurt a bit.  Well.....maybe a little.  First I want to state that text gives people a pain because it may look better as a gif, but what the text is being placed on looks terrible as a gif.  So the first thing you have to decide is rather you want this to be on an image, a background or do you want it to be transparent?

The one problem you run into with transparent gif headers is not being able to use a drop shadow.  No matter how hard you try, a drop shadow is never going to look right when you make your text a transparent gif.  So, let's do one of each.  A transparent gif and a jpg text header.  Below is a sample of each.  The first is the transparent gif file, the second is the jpg file.

Here's what I do when I want my text to remain a jpg, yet I want to be able to place it on the background of my page.  I open up the background I'm using.  If it's a solid color, that's really easy.  Just use the eyedropper and match the color.  Then flood fill your blank new image.  If you are using a design background, it's going to be hard to do unless that background is some kind of simple texture.  Try to pick the most visible color in the design.  In this case, I'm using a green stuco texture.  To work along with this tutorial, right click and save this green stucco background piece.

You don't want to use the copy and paste into selection or the pattern fill method to create your text background.  Why not?  This distorts the background on the new image and won't match on your web page.  Copy the background and paste as a new layer.  If it's bigger than the text image size you are planning, no problem.  If it's smaller, keep pasting as new layers, matching it up until the new image is filled with no lines where you pieced it together.

The green stucco background is 165x166.  So if you are going to be making a header that is on a background of 500x100, you would have to paste the green stucco on that 4 times.  I suggest pasting each one on as a new layer, then when you have them all arranged, merge the visible layers.  The text header you are going to make on it will now match on the web page when you use the smaller 165x166 green stucco image as the background for your webpage.

I really don't have to go into much more for the text on a background.  The one important thing to remember is to continue working in layers.  Add a new layer before you put your text on.  If using Blade Pro on the text, use it while the text is still selected.  Then add your drop shadow.  Before adding any decorations to the text, add a new layer.  That way if you use a tube image, you can move it around until you have it where you like it.  And this would be how the finished text would look.

Ok....let's do the transparent gif text now.  The font I'm using is Raphael.  I like the look of that font for headers.  With your text color picked, write your text and add it to the new transparent image.  While it is still selected, cut and paste as a new layer.  To get the text to be all selected again, click on the Selection tool on the Tool Palette.  Draw a rectangle or square box around the text.  Now click inside of the box with the marching ants.  It will snap to your text and select all of it.

Doesn't that have a nice look to it?   Ok, now to the tricky part.  Pick the most common color in the background the text will go on.  Add a new layer to your text image and flood fill that with the color.  In this case it's a pale shade of green.