.dds files issues

[littlebil]

I have been currently having a issue with opening .dds files and hope someone has a solution.

 

Before explaining my issue i would like to preface this by saying, I have installed and successfully used the .dds plugin for Photoshop for over a year. I have recently upgraded to CC2018, but this issue has been happening before that and it seems to be happening more lately.

When i try to open a .dds file i get a black image, sometimes there are lines of pixels but nothing distinguishable. I have also tried opening the same file using Gimp, but i receive an error and the file doesn't open.

 

Is there new program that some of the higher end mod creators use? I have opened and edited many .dds files and saved them and they work flawlessly in game. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

(i attached a file showing what i see when i open one of these files that do not work correctly)

 

 

[ehtyeci]

For Photoshop, you should be using the fairly recently developed Intel texture works plugin which handles block compression iterations up to bc7. I've never had any issues opening any dds files in Photoshop using this as well as having the old Nvidia dds plugin as a backup.

When you open dds files, make sure you use "Open As" from File and select the appropriate format. If you simply drag and drop or use "Open", Photoshop will make an assumption on what plugin to use for reading dds. You need to specify that you want the image to be opened by Intel texture works.

Optionally you can use Compressonator and drop dds files into that - it eats almost anything except for some non-square dds files. It should at least give you the fourcc information as to what kind of compression was used, and let you export it to a more workable format for editing.

[payl0ad]

Alternatively, if for some reason the Intel tools don't work, Paint.NET can also read most if not all DDS formats.