Skinning help!

[Sw3ll3r3]

Hey everyone, I'm beginning to get interested in skinning, I'm yet to acquire Photoshop but soon will. At the moment i am using Gimp, yeah it sucks but its free and it is a temporary program. Any ways, I downloaded P2sta 2012 KTMsx 250 because It is awesome and it comes with a pdf template so i can edit. It has a shading layer, a norm file? (No clue what that is), and the actually bike plastic and parts. I have been able to successively apply my number and name to the front plate and numbers to the side number plates (whoa big deal! lol). But when i try to design something on the shrouds I lose the actual curvature and dimensions of the shroud and it looks flat and god awful. What am I doing wrong? I have searched around a little on this topic, I haven't found to much so I apologize if I re-posted an existing thread! Thanks!!