tip #1...right click the text layer and go to blending options...mess around with stuff until you make it look good...always piut at least an outer glow on it because if you dont do anything to it it looks slapped together...

i use these the most often:
drop shadow...fiddle around with distance
outer glow...mess with color, size and spread...play around with mode too but not in every sig
inner glow...i dont use this as much as outer glow...just check it and change it to the same color as the outer glow
satin...looks sharp if the text is sketchy or dark colored...just check it dont mess with stuff
stroke...usually 1 or 2 px...the words in my top sig have a gray 1px stroke...you can see it if you look hard...3 px is too much unless you change the mode...mode is color burn on my botom sig...

thats all I remember off the top of my head...you are usually gonna want to have your text layers as the top layers...

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