For those new at repainting, I thought I would share something I learned a while back. It is something passed on to me by someone with more experience at repainting.

I wish I could remember who and give them credit.

It is best to use a paint program capable of saving work in a format with layers, preferably .psd files, such as those in Photo Shop and Paint Shop Pro.


Some of the reasons are:


1. Open a texture from a paint kit, or one from an existing texture and when you get to a stopping point, save it to a folder you have created for your work,

NOT the texture folder in FSX. Do this from the paint program, NOT DXTBmp. You can go back whenever you feel like working on it and always save it back

to the same folder. This prevents degredation that you WILL get if you open it each time in DXTBmp and save it back to the texture folder. You will notice

pixels of unwanted color here and there. This does not happen when saving as a .psd each time in a work folder. When you think you are finished or want

to check your work in the sim, open it in DXTBmp and save it to the texture folder. If you find errors or something you want to change, go back to the work

folder from your paint program and do the work, again saving it to the work folder. When you are finished or want to just check your work again, repeat the

process of opening it from DXTBmp and save it to the texture folder. A little trick I learned for the alpha channel, is to first open the same basic texture

from an existing texture in DXTBmp, send the alpha to the editor. Duplicate it and close the original.

Then open your work in DXTBmp and send the alpha to your editor. Then copy and paste from the duplicate to your blank alpha, and use the cursor keys

to center before releasing the dotted line. Close and save, then save your work to the texture folder in DXTBmp.


2. Using .psd files allows you to use layers, which opens a whole new world of possibilities. You can use Overlay or Mutliply on a new layer above the base

without losing the rivets, lines, shadows, and wear marks. The possibilities available to you using layers is way too vast to address here, but hopefully

this gives you some idea of the possiblities.


Hope this helps you.

Cheers,

Larry