Good programs? Not new to graphic design

Hey all. First off I would like to say that I am not new to creating logos, signatures, and graphics in general. Since I was about 10 I was making Game Battles team logos on gimp because I couldn't afford Photoshop at the time. Later on, I got photoshop and but hundreds of hours into it, teaching most of what I know myself, including making twitch overlays for league of legends. In fact, I made my own signature (although I am having some problems with the quility since I am using the photo through imgur and there seems to be a huge lack of clearness in my images). I know my sig is not the best, as it took my litterally 5 minutes to make using gimp (I sold my desktop with CS5 on it 2 years back so gimp is my go too atm). But I feel like I am quite limited using gimp, especially when I like going to transparent signatures, which again, seem to come out blurry through posting in imgur. I always see a lot of people with very complex signatures that seem to be using a completly different program, allowing for more 3D like images. Also, I noted a lot of people have lighting and motion effects added to their signatures. I tried looking into this and all I can seem to find is adobe after effects. Anyone have any tips on some good programs that wont break my bank that i could try? Iv made dozens of background, youtube banner, twitch overlays, twitch banner, for all sorts of champions and I would like to continue to do it for that and some other mmoprgs and maybe using some lighting effects like I see all over sythe. i would love to learn to make the lava in my signature (Which will be updated very soon dw I know the quailty isn't the best) glow and give the effect of the lava actually moving. anyway, would love to hear back from the community!

 

Bumping

 

If you bought a CS5 key you should still be able to use it if you have access to your Adobe ID. Aside from photoshop your best free alternative is GIMP which you are already aware of. If you do end up having to rebuy photoshop I heavily reccomend checking out adobe creative cloud, its something like $20 a month and you get unlimited access to a variety of different products in the adobe suite such as photoshop, illustrator, and after effects, all three of which I use regularly. Also if you are a student at a university I would check out and ser if your school offers some sort of student discount for adobe products, many schools do and it shouldn't be that hard to find out.

The 3D text in signatures that you see throughout the forums is made in a program called Cinema 4D. There are a plethora of tutorials of how to make text using it, and after you figure out the basics and how to use the tools the program offers, it is just trial and error in finding a result you are satisfied with. After the C4D text is rendered people usually drag the image into photoshop where people add effects and such, and then modt animations you see are done in after effects.