Hmmm, the best would be if you actually could see the file in photoshop or something. i am using the Nvidia DDS plugin + the DDS Thumbnail Viewer (handy when doing mods)
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/p...s_plugins.html
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/d...il_viewer.html
But as you seem to know what you are doing its utterly weird, never heard of anyone that had this...