texturing measurements
 

I seem to have a problem getting the size of the texures right in photoshop to the proper scale on the first try. For instance I might do a wood texture and when I bring it in maya the bark size will look to big. It looks okay in photoshop to me most times but when I render it is still to large. Is there a rule of thumb on creating the texture the right size on the first try.I know when trying to create realistic textures higher texture resolution is better, but when you resize to fit the UV's is there a simple rule to know how big or small it should be to look realistic without trial and error. Any help would be appreciated.

If you have generated your UV map and have exported that from Maya at the resolution you want, then you should not get any issues here the texture i too big. From the sound of it I think you may be doing what a lot of people do in the begining and just apply textures to faces using a planer, or auto Projection.

Really you need to do the Auto Projection and then head to the UV Editor and get all the UV's layed out as you need or want them, once thats done then you export the uv layout to a good image format and start working on it from there in Photoshop. You are correct in the fact that the higher res the better (as long as your pc can deal with it). Hi-Res textures can cause Maya to slow down considerably or even crash out.

Can you post a screenshot of what your result is and deatil how you did it that way we can better advise you on where to go next.

thanks I will post some scren shots when I start texturing my new project.