The best programme to use, for free, by far is GIMP.
Won't quite do full 3D likes Jimmys JConcepts banner. I expect he first made the JConcepts in 3ds Max, then rendered it, took it into Photoshop and then completed it by adding text, logo and maybe touching up the 3ds Max render too.
With GIMP though you can do faux 3d, i.e. emboss and so on. And will do pretty much everything you need.
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Jason Moller
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