I hear a lot of people like to use Gimp, but here is an alternative.

Paint.Net (another free paint program) http://www.getpaint.net/download.html does save in DDS format. You can save in PSD format if you install this plugin. http://psdplugin.codeplex.com/

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There is also this freeware image converter if your paint program isn't compatible with psd files for example.

http://download.cnet.com/RentASoft-Image-Converter/3000-2192_4-10583338.html?tag=mncol;2


The program supports conversion to or from the following formats: JPEG, GIF, Adobe PSD, TIFF, Bitmap (BMP), PNG, Icon, PCX, TGA, PXM, WBMP, PostScript (PS), and Adobe PDF. Version 2.3 includes support for 64 bit Windows.

Why not just use GIMP? It even supports DDS.

Why not just use GIMP? It even supports DDS.

I was just looking at Gimp 2 and I didn't see a DDS file extention in its save as format.

edit: Looks like there is a plugin to give gimp DDS.

I was just looking at Gimp 2 and I didn't see a DDS file extention in its save as format.

edit: Looks like there is a plugin to give gimp DDS.

yea there is a plugin, got it installed but i seem to have issues when saving in .dds any special config?

DDS for Civ5 must be uncompressed, RGB with alpha.

The Paint.net is working nicely. The plugin to give it psd was super easy, as easy as dragging the downloaded file into a folder.

DDS for Civ5 must be uncompressed, RGB with alpha.

Thanks for that info.

yea I use all of them. GIMP is by far the best for resizing images, to be honest nothing is even close, not even PS. All the others have their pro's and con's too.

Why not just use GIMP? It even supports DDS.


i don't think that you could save your made images from gimp to .DDS format.
:p

So, using paint.net any artwork I save (I'm working with civ logo icons) don't seem to work correctly. The game gives a non-fatal error (cannot load xxx32/64/etc.dds) and the emblem shows up as a red square in-game.

I saw the above comment that they need to be saved as RGB with Alpha but I'm having some trouble figuring out if paint.net is saving in that format.

Any tips?
(Tried the gimp dds plugin, but it claims my version of gimp isn't compatible, so I'm trying to just use paint.net for now since others have said it works)

Nevermind - it turns out it's some kind of a problem with modbuddy. When I create the mod "from scratch" with notepad, it works fine, but creating the exact same mod with modbuddy causes the above-described image problem. Go figure.

Sounds like you didn't set Import into VFS to true in modbuddy - click on the DDS file, then scroll to the bottom of the properties window (lower of the two right hand frame windows) and set it there