thanks, I'll try it and see what happens.

however, i noticed that atleast tex_psn.gim and tex_indi_bg.gim corrupt every time (these are most noticeable as they show up in xmb all the time as opposed to the rest) , and assuming they're standard gims, it should then work.
do the other images mess these up or is there something else to this im missing?

either way, I'll try only converting tex_psn and see if it breaks

Edit: well that's a no-go. the tex_psn.gim breaks if converted normally or with DXT5 option.
gimconv also spat an error: illegal image order when converting back to gim, but since it compiled fine i just ignored that.
the DXT5 image was a lot smaller than the original too..

*back to drawing board*

edit2: i unpacked a pile of rco's and so far they all repeat the same. no graphics load on the console after being converted to png and back, modified or not.
tried with DXT5 too and also tried the -ps3 switch on gimconv. both compressed and uncompressed state (huge uncompressed rco files are an issue with the limited space on the flash too)

i wonder if there's something the ps3 does to check the files or something.. I fail to believe that all the gim's are somehow broken, and they do work with p3t theme files anyway...

im calling it a day for now as im totally empty on ideas.
Has anyone gotten modified graphics to load in ANY way aside with p3t themes ?

one last edit though....

i noticed that when gims are unpacked from rco without conversion, the header is something like "GIM1.00.PSP" ... now.. when a gim is packed from png with default settings (using rcomage's gui) the header becomes "MIG.00.1PSP" ..and when a gim is packed from png using -ps3 switch, the header becomes ".GIM1.00."

now... what settings do i use to get "GIM1.00.PSP" header back into it ?