How to Create a Custom War Thunder Camouflage

Create the in-game template

Select a vehicle, open Customization and create a user camouflage example. The game creates the correct folder and file names.

Find UserSkins and back it up

Open UserSkins in the War Thunder installation folder, then open the generated vehicle folder:

War Thunder\UserSkins\template_vehicle_name

Copy the whole folder before editing.

Open the texture

Work on the texture supplied by the template, commonly .dds or .tga. Photoshop may require an Nvidia/Intel DDS plugin or a converter; it does not necessarily open DDS out of the box. Convert only a backup, then export back to the original template format.

Make the vehicle darker

Duplicate the layer. Use Curves, Levels or Hue/Saturation (Colorize) to darken the selected body area. Use a selection or mask so markings and shading stay intact. Preserve alpha/transparency and the original dimensions.

Save correctly

Keep the original file name, dimensions, channels and supported format. Do not replace a game texture with JPEG: it is lossy and has no alpha channel. For DDS, use the same compression/channel setup as the source whenever the tool exposes it; otherwise compare the exported copy with the template.

Put the edited texture in the template folder, return to Customization, refresh the user camouflage list, select it and inspect the vehicle.