Well, 6-7 months ago i was designing signatures without knowing what flow is. Although everyone was commenting 'great flow' and stuff, for me it was made subconciously. So, a simple way for you to succeed flow is to use effects and smudge them to the direction you want, either way ready stocks or brushes should do the trick.
Just like a sig i made some time ago:
As about the 'cut effects' i don't really know what u're talking about. If by any chance you mean the stocks you use are provided with black background, etc you just place it then delete the background with the 'Magic Eraser Tool'. If some edges seem to be kinda sharpened or whatever you can use the blur tool, or zoom an erase them with ur eraser(troublesome). Afterwards if you wanna copy that effect again, you just have to copy the previous layer you made without bg.
Edit: If you didn't understand a thing of what i'm talking about, pm me to explain further.