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If i'm going to be completely frank, I could never get nvidias plugin to actually make a usable normal map, I was probably doing something incredibly stupid but I did use the dds plugin a lot, so it came in handy somewhere.

quixel works like a 2D version of mudbox, you can sculpt directly onto the normal map, change how it looks and control pretty much every aspect of what the final map looks like. Not to mention you can preview the normal map on the model in realtime without leaving photoshop, any quixel package you buy comes with a 3D preview too for free. Its very easy to pick up its literally just open an image and click the generate normal map from image button.

Quixel is getting used by a good few developers, for a program thats not even a year old, its doing pretty well. If you're curious about it, theres a free 45 day trial of the entire suite so you get access to its diffuse creation tools too, its an application that runs parallel to photoshop 64 bit, so it automatically launches photoshop when you load the program.

Hmm I like the idea of repurposing the maps as a displacement map for the image, i'll give it a go, thanks!