ehm, i use Paint shop pro...
And i consider myself still a newbie in skinning...
I also noticed that, and i tryed to aplly a custom pattern on the whole skin, more to let skin appear as "opaque" and not "plastified", results for now are.. ehm... need to experiment a little more...
Instead of placing your skinning layers on top of the white base skin and setting them to multiply, put the base skin above the painting layers and set it to multiply. That way you can have several layers with paintwork on it, which is the purpose of having layers in the first place. I stopped using the white base layer as I think on most skins it makes them look poor. If someone were to make a proper shading/highlight layer set at 2048res I'd gladly use it. I simply don't have the skills for it.
go easy on me, but i'm a BIG Jenson Button Fan and as he started his motor career in F3, i'm starting my LFS career in FOX, and I've created a skin to use which is hopefully similar to the actual F3 livery he used in 1999.
anyway, here goes, it's number 22 and reflects that years entry into the Marlboro Masters in Holland that he competed in
Not always, usually i would say yes as people dont post private skin files often but occasionally they do so always good to read the text in peoples posts to see if they say public or private