Hi,
Most of the vintage/indie sellers are using the split/composite thumb image with the Gallery Plus or Featured First features. Funny, I use to use that old trick for graded/slabbed coins a few years back. It definitely works (gets attention). I'm guessing you're a vintage clothing seller by the forum name.
Another tool that works well is Google's free product "Picasa".
http://picasa.google.com/
You can use Picasa to crop your photos and add text banners / logos / watermarks / borders.
Because eBay has adopted the square thumb/header (and so too has Auctiva for Store Window), you can use the Create - Collage selection with Page Format set to "Square: CD Cover". That way the new listing page (going live June 15th) with the 500 x 500 zoom photo header gets full view proportions.
Hope that suggestion helps.
Danno