This texture mod wouldn't be possible without DS2LightingEngine SotFS. It's amazing, please go endorse and vote for it if you can!

My goal with this texture pack is to maintain the artistic intent of the original textures, while substantially increasing clarity and detail. Most textures have received either 2x or 4x AI upscale. Tried to only enhance what is there, not change the look.

please read: SSD (sata or nvme) recommended. During testing, some users had an HDD, and said it worked fine. But YMMV. 

Installation instructions (simplified for 0.5):
Install DS2LightingEngine SotFS
Run the game once, load your character, press F1 to bring up the DS2LightingEngine UI
Under "User Settings," find the "Texture Cache" dropdown box and select "override"
Click save. Exit game.
If you are using a prior install of my texture mod, delete everything in your tex_override folder prior to next steps (except for any texture files from other mods you may be using!)
copy the "tex_override" folder from each rar file to your DS2 game folder and overwrite.
if you're downloading the torrent, you can simply copy that one tex_override folder
Open your ds2le_user_settings.ini (in game folder) to verify that this line is as follows: texture_cache_mode=2
It should be, but just double check.
If it is, you're good to go! Load up DS2 and have fun! ;)

Steam Deck additional notes (credit to user Plemo0304):
"This mod works on Steam Deck. Quite easily at that.
For anyone curious, I had to use Protontricks to install vcrun under Windows DLL or component and had to tick "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" for DS2SotFS.
Though that step was necessary for installing DS2LightingEngine SotFS.

Reverting Modified Scholar of the Second Sin Title Logo:
Simply delete this file in your tex_override folder: h_12468555327461286067h_13103369309438574334.dds

How to Uninstall:
Simply delete the textures in the tex_override folder and boom, you're done. Easy peasy.

Things to note / current issues:
If you see any artifacting on the textures, please report the issue in posts here or on the DS2LightingEngine Discord. I'll look into them as soon as I can.
Load times will be longer using these textures. That's normal. Might improve in future builds of DS2LightingEngine.
Lag on the character load screen
Stutters during gameplay (most are shader compilation)

Things to be done: 
-finish all weapons and armor
-finish all icons
-do another pass of each zone to find remaining low res textures
-for things that can't be upscaled well, look into backporting textures from elden ring / ds3

If you like my work here, you can support me by subscribing to my YouTube or directly donating via PayPal :) just launched a Patreon as well!