Hey guys,
I've recently had an idea for a mod, and the idea includes paintings.
But before I can start work on it, I need to know how to create them.
I've tried on GIMP, by scaling my screenshots down to 256x128 or 128x128, but when I try to put them on the mesh in NIFSkope it doesn't show.
Does anyone know of a tutorial on this or can anyone tell me?

Did you save the image as .dds?
Also, they need to be somewhere in data\textures folder and they need to have normal map (you can use existing image_n.dds by calling your image image_MyPicture.dds.

You need to convert the screenshot to .dds (try DDs converter 2.0 http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8698 )

@washington yes i saved as dds, but forgot to put in textures folder.
@hashmi i'll try that
thanks both of you.

Forget DDS converter, photoshop has a DDS plugin, you can just paste your screenshot in photoshop and save as a DDS and generate mimaps. It's much easier.

Yeah, who needs a free utility when you can use a $700 software package!

http://www.iguanadons.net/Say-Cheese-Making-Paintings-For-Oblivion-309.html tutorial may be of some use to you. It's for GIMP + Paint .NET, but there's a little bit of discussion of how to do it all in GIMP in the comments.

If you are unaware, http://code.google.com/p/gimp-dds/ plugin allows GIMP to read and save DDS natively, no need for outside programs or $700 software packages.

Similarly, http://code.google.com/p/gimp-normalmap/ plugin allows GIMP to create normal maps natively as well.

Hope that helps.

Have a look at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=9897. He includes links or the name to another mod that allows you to create paintings out of your screenshots. See the readme.

Thanks everyone!

The photoshop DDS plugin is free, and I'm not advising the OP to buy photoshop for this task alone. I'm advising the OP to use the DDS plugin with photoshop assuming he has photoshop, and judging by the fact that he is doing some type of graphical work, the chances are likely.

PS: Use that tone with me again and I will park my truck in your living room. Have a nice day.

Why would you jump to that conclusion? GIMP can do pretty much everything that Photoshop does, same with Paint.net as I understand it, and both are free. Just because someone does graphic work doesn't automatically mean they're using Photoshop. They might even be using some other commercial program like ACDSee. I'm not sure if Corel Draw is still being made today but they might at least have an older version of that one. You shouldn't make any presumptions on what people are using to do their work, there's plenty of alternatives out there.

This discussion is getting pointless now.

You can with the help of proper plug-ins if necessary create DDS files with Photoshop, Gimp, Paint.NET and maybe some other programs.

DDS converters, Jog's TR and other early methods are outdated now.

Anyway, as I said, it is getting pointless especially when OP said in post #4 that he's made DDS. Seems that nobody read that and all posts except #1, #2 and #4 are pointless.

I'm not aware of any DDS plugins for those programs.

I know GIMP has one as I use it, and I've been told that Paint.net can handle DDS files by default. No plugin is even needed. I prefer GIMP's plugin frankly, the one I have for Photoshop doesn't save the files correctly. The mipmap colours come out all wrong and the texture ends up looking like crap. It's probably because of some setting that I'm not applying correctly when I save, but GIMP works better for me because of it.