Banging my head against the wall over these damn .dds retextures. Help!

[SmedleyDButler]

EDIT: I think this may have been posted in the wrong forum. Apologies to any mods, but I cannot delete this post (I am editing it rather than bumping it). Mods you can go ahead and delete this post, thanks.

 

************

 

 

Alright, so I'm trying to recolour a four-channel colour texture .dds (RGB & Alpha), using photoshop CS2 with the appropriate .dds plugin installed.

 

Problem is, every time I try to save, the image gets destroyed yellow-filtered, white-filtered, whatever. Obviously it's wrong.

 

I have read a dozen or more tutorials, including the ones on the Nexus wiki and on many different websites and forums. Not one of them agree! Everybody has different suggestions, different settings, and god knows what recommendations.

 

I've tried saving with 888 RGB 24, DXT3 ARGB, both versions of DXT5 (ARGB and XY), and even some of the the formats I didn't see suggested anywhere. What the hell am I doing wrong? What setting am I missing? Is there something I need to do in the normal map settings? Or elsewhere? I saw one tutorial which mentioned doing a pass with the normal map filter before saving, but when I did that, that also ruined the image. Please tell me what it is that I'm doing so wrong.

 

Thanks!

 

Images:

 

http://i.imgur.com/ApSJTK3.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/f3QdfOX.jpg

Edited November 8, 2016 by SmedleyDButler

[RopeSander]

Hmmm... I noticed it's saving in DXT5, which suggests the plugin is set for a FIVE channel format. I have Photoshop CS5, the plugin I 'FINALLY' discovered works for that, perhaps your version of Photoshop does not convert files in the correct/best format????? Regardless if you're simply trying to do a simple re-texture, I would suggest downloading 'paint.NET', I believe it's easily accessible over the internet, and it may be basic.... BUT!!!! let me TELL YOUUUU!! It is quite adapt and smart with .dds textures.... in fact one thing it does over Photoshop, let's say you want to PRIVATELY re-texture a whole set of armor (curiass, gloves, boots, and helmet). It works FLAWLESSLY changing and saving textures, and is compatible with .dds files. Also it's BEST feature I've found is if you have a 'theme' for a retexture, say it's as simple as changing the brightness/contrast on a curiass to be darker.... well, once you make your adjustments, even after you have saved the last document, when you open the 'gloves.dds' (or whatever) it will REMEMBER the settings for the last edit in Brightness/contrast, so it's as simple as loading the next texture, hitting the menu for editing Brightness/Texture and the sliders will automatically automate to the previous edit, and therefore eliminating any need to write notes physically of edits.

 

I can't pretend to know all the programming intricacies of Photoshop, but I know my version works well and in fact I am unfamiliar with the secondary window that is displayed after the 'NVIDIA dds format', that you show above.

 

And 'yes' in case you ask, I DO NOT have a NVIDIA driver, it doesn't matter, the plug-in functions with my AMD Raedeon 6770 just fine.