Paint.NET problems

[The Little One]

When making icons for civs on Paint.NET and then saving as .dds, I always find that it goes INSANELY pixelated. Does anyone else have this problem?

I've heard that Gimp's quite good but I think my copy's broken, can someone post a link to a good download?

 

[human machine]

are you using compression?

I haven't used Paint.net for .dds files, but others have said it works fine or better than GIMP, with DXT1 compression. you could also try DXT3, which worked the best for Civ 4

 

[The Little One]

Thanks, it was the compression, DXT3 works way better