Step 1: Choose a program you wanna work with (photoshop is definitely the best and maybe you can download it somewhere *cough* but of course you shouldn't do that, because that's illegal*cough*)
You can however download the program GIMP for free at various sites.
2: Fanpop banner size is 800px x 100px. If you have a picture that's bigger than that, you can cut the part of it that should be the banner out.
Or you create a new white picture with the size 800 x 100 and then move one or more images on it.
3:Play around with whatever color settings the program you chose has and see what happens ;)
While I agree that photoshop is the best (I love it), if all you want to do is screw with colors, which may or may not be the case, Microsoft Office Picture Manager (which probably came with your computer if you have a PC) is much easier to use and you can do a lot of sweet stuff with it. I started out using it, and while you can't add text or combine pictures, the work that you can do with color is amazing. I've made some of my favorite icons that way.
But if you're looking to do anything other than working with color, I agree that Photoshop is definitely the way to go.
