A question came up in the comments to my previous post:
Any suggestions on the best way to edit DDS files on a Mac?
The answer is simple: do not edit DDS files!!!
The problem is simple: DDS is a lossy compressed format. Every time you go from an uncompressed/losslessly compressed format (like PNG, TIFF, or BMP) to a lossy format (like DDS or JPEG) you are going to lose a little bit of image quality. So if you re-open your DDS, edit it, and resave, your graphics program is going to make a round trip and reduce quality.
Version-specific location - which will only load the installed plug-in for a specific version of Photoshop (e.g. Only Photoshop 2020) Shared Creative Cloud location - which will load the plug-in for all installed versions of Photoshop without having to reinstall the plug-in.
- Hi, I am wondering if it would be possible to add DDS support to Affinity Photo. Its required for many 3D Applications and games and is supported by both Photoshop and Paint.net and probably more. If it isnt going to be added would it be possible to add support for the Intel or NVidia DDS photosh.
- Q: Is a Mac. version available A: No, not at this time. Multiple image format support for BCn, Save with; Microsoft DirectX 10 extended header for sRGB; Read DirectX10 extended header DDS files into Photoshop; Choice of Fast and Fine (more accurate) compression; Support for alpha maps, color maps, normal maps; Support for cube.
Therefore the work flow should be:
- Edit the original PNG or photoshop master file.
- When done, re-export to DDS.
So each time you work, you work from a lossless or uncompressed master (like PNG or a gimp/photoshop file) and then re-export to DDS.
About Ben Supnik
Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.I've written a plug-in to read and write the DirectDraw Surface file format in After Effects and Photoshop. DDS files usually store textures because they employ compression formats that can be decoded quickly on a GPU. The plug-in is free and open source.Most of the heavy lifting in this plug-in is done by Rich Geldreich's open source crunch library. DDS users may also want to check out Rich's DDS Export program and Nvidia's Photoshop plug-in.
Development of the plug-in was sponsored by Walter Soyka of Keen Live and Cameron Yeary of UVLD. Walter inquired about hiring me to write a plug-in for him, and I said I'd do it for half price if I could make it open source. He agreed, and here we are.
Download
Version: 0.6