Best .DDS image editor?

[priboi]

Hi guys, im newish to stalker modding and would like to know the best program for editing the DDS texture files in stalker?

[Nightwatch]

There are of course some other software like GIMP (haven't tried it) but many people put smart money on Adobe Photoshop. You can use it together with the help of Fireworks, as Photoshop and Fireworks do things complementing each other. They are both available in Adobe suits, like CS3, CS4 and CS5. You need a DDS plug-in from NVIDIA site -which is free- for Photoshop in order to open and save DSS files. More information on how to save the DDS after you've completed the work is available here on this forum on Modding Techniques. Still, if you can't find it when you've come to the "save as DDS" step, we can go through that again at that time. If you use Adobe Photoshop or not, on every important thing is that you must save the DDS with alpha channel embedded.

[priboi]

Cool, yeah ive been using GIMP with the .DDS plug-in at the moment but I found the program a bit akward to use. I might just cough up and buy photoshop like you said Thanks for the help mate

[priboi]

Lol, need help! im using gimp 2.0 with the .DDS plug-in (because i cant aford Photoshop for a we while ) and ive come to saving the file, its ui_load.dds file im editing a when i go to save it as a .dds it tells me that ," It appears your image may be a volume map, but not all layers are the same size, thus a volume map cannot be written." and then gives me a option to change the compression and format, what do i do? what exactly is a volume map?

[Nightwatch]

Lol, need help! im using gimp 2.0 with the .DDS plug-in (because i cant aford Photoshop for a we while ) and ive come to saving the file, its ui_load.dds file im editing a when i go to save it as a .dds it tells me that ," It appears your image may be a volume map, but not all layers are the same size, thus a volume map cannot be written." and then gives me a option to change the compression and format, what do i do? what exactly is a volume map?

Never have had the chance to work with GIMP, so I can't make any comment on the prompt it posts, I hope someone else who may have worked with GIMP can come and offer an idea on this. But, just an idea, you can try putting the GIMP prompt on Google and see if it comes up with any other examples and proposed solutions from some other users.

--However, on another note, you can download Photoshop as trial and I guess you can use it up to 30 days, and if later you reinstall the windows, then you can reinstall Photoshop as well. Also, there may have been other offers around to help you use it longer term if you search the internet offers. Actually, getting Photoshop just for modding purposes -and if it's not used for business as well- is way too expensive.

[priboi]

Um i looked at the photoshop trial last night and the problem is that im on a dial-up internet connection at the moment so it'll take like 4 weeks to download so im gonna save up and buy it from a store but in the mean time ill surf the web and ask around the forum abit, thanks for ya help

[ket]

Kinda late on this but, paint.net is excellent and its totally free. You will need to download plugins though to get paint.net on a similar level to photoshop. I actually use a combination of Gimp, Paint.net and Photoshop for any changes I make. Just depends on the kind of change I'm making and which software does it best.