[Award Winner] Antique-style maps in Photoshop

[Ascension]

This is the map I made for the tutorial that is about to follow. It's not perfect and is designed to help folks get their feet wet with the antique style. There are many ways of doing it, this is just the way I have done it. There are also many options to experiment with along the way and I could not possibly cover all of those options...I leave that to you all This style is fairly easy to set up and once you have the basics of it down then you should be able to expand upon it and create your own style and process variants. As always, questions, comments, etc. are welcome.

[Ascension]

1. This is my first attempt at the antique style so it may grow and change in time. This is in Photoshop so I’m not sure if the details of the techniques translate to other programs but it should be fairly easy to make whatever changes as these techniques and tools are pretty standard.

2. First off, let’s set up the document: 2000 X 2000 at 300 ppi, rgb mode, 8 bit. Set colors to black and white. Filter > Render > Clouds ((pic antique 1)). Copy this layer. Create a new blank layer. Edit > Fill = 50% gray. On the layers palette, set the mode to Hard Mix, this gives us a black and white interpretation of the underlying clouds without the grays ((pic antique 2)). Rename this layer to “land” – to do this, on the layers palette, double-click on the layer name itself. Click on the “background copy” layer. Grab a big airbrush, set the flow to 10%, and use black to fill in the ocean and white for the land. Our landmasses should be white and the ocean should be black ((pic antique 3)). When happy, link with the “land” layer, click on the “land” layer, merge down (ctrl-e). Make sure that black is the foreground color then Select > Color Range > use black with a fuzziness of anything. Hit the Delete key then deselect (ctrl-d). Click on the “Background” layer and create a new layer, rename it to “ocean” and then Edit > Fill = 50% gray. Click back on the “land” layer. Add a layer style of Stroke…set the size at 2, color is black, and position is inside. We now have our landmass done, pretty easy too ((pic antique 4)). One thing to keep in mind is that when doing this style of map it is important to have a good deal of empty space in one or two corners. This will allow us to have some space to put in the title graphics, compass, scale, clipart, etc.

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3. This part is a little tedious but necessary…rivers (ugh). On the layers palette ctrl-click on the “land” layer. Create a new layer and rename it to “rivers”. Make sure you have the pencil tool and not the brush tool and grab the “Hard square 2 pixels” tip. On the Brushes palette, click on “Brush tip shape” and set the spacing to 1%. With black draw a bunch of squiggles starting in the ocean and going inland…since we have a selection of our land layer the lines will only be drawn on the land and not the ocean. Change over to a 1-pixel tip for minor rivers and don’t forget to put in forks and branches in the rivers ((pic antique 5)). By defining our rivers first we can use the open space left over for the mountains, swamps, deserts, etc.

4. Mountains are a two-step process. Create a new layer and rename it to “mountains 1”. Still using the pencil grab a big tip, I’m going with the default Soft round 27-pixels. Check your spacing on the tip and set it to 1% if you need to. Draw in some basic lines, not shapes ((pic antique 6)). Create a new layer and rename it to “mountains 2”. Change from the pencil to a brush and use the default Hard round 3-pixels and set the flow at 100%. Zoom in to 100%. Now add a bunch of cilia (hair) around the outside of the mountain line…it should look like a paramecium ((pic antique 7)). When done, hide the “mountains 1” layer and take the 2 off of the other mountains layer. Now our basic topography is done. A more modern take on this approach is to taper the lines. To do this, click on the Brushes tab then click on Shape Dynamics. Underneath the Size Jitter is a box that will probably say “Pen pressure”…change this to Fade and set the amount of how much you want the taper to be.

[Ascension]

5. Click on the “Background” layer and create a new layer, rename it to “white” and fill it with white. Click on the “ocean” layer and add a layer style of Gradient overlay…use a very light teal-blue to a very light pink. My colors are: blue = BEDCE6 (rgb 190, 220, 230) and pink = F5D7D7 (rgb 245, 215, 215). Drop the opacity of the gradient to 50% ((pic antique 8 )). Copy the “white” layer and rename it to “noise”. Next, move it to the top of the layers palette. Filter > Noise > Add noise = 50% and make sure that monochromatic is unchecked (this gives colors). Set the layer’s mode to overlay. Create a new layer and rename it to “aging”. Change the foreground color to something tan with a bit of red in it…I used 84745E (rgb 132, 116, 94). Now change the layer’s opacity to 15%. Filter > Texture > Texturizer = use canvas as the texture, set the scaling at 50%, the relief at 5, and the light is at the top (this puts the emphasis on the horizontal lines whereas top left gives us something more 3d than what we want) ((pic antique 9)).

[Ascension]

6. Now we need to put in the rings around the landmasses so reset the colors to black and white. Click on the “land” layer and create a new layer. On the layers palette ctrl-click on the “land” layer…this loads this layer’s selection. Select > Modify > Expand = 1. Fill with white and deselect. On the layers palette, change the fill to 0%. Add a layer style of stroke, 1-pixel, black, outside. On the layers palette, right click on this layer and choose “Copy layer style”. Create a new layer and ctrl-click on “Layer 1”, Select > Modify > Expand = 2. Fill with white and deselect. On the layers palette, right click on this layer (it should be Layer 2) and choose “Paste layer style”. Continue doing this until you have 10 layers/rings, expanding the selection by 3, then 4, then 5, etc. Once you have 10 rings, link the layers in the layer palette…you do this by clicking the empty box between the eye and the layer preview pic. Merge these layers together (ctrl-e). Rename the resulting layer to “rings”. Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur = 0.3. Click on the “rivers” layer and hit ctrl-f (this applies the last used filter to this layer…in this case the blur). Move the “noise” layer underneath the “land” layer. Move the “rings” layer underneath the “land” layer ((pic antique 10)). Copy the “rings” layer if your rings look too light.

[Ascension]

7. Let’s tweak the aging a little bit so click on the “aging” layer and create a new layer. Rename it to “brown” and fill with the brown we used earlier (84745E). Ctrl-click on the “land” layer in the layers palette. Select > Modify > Expand = 100. Expand 2 more times. Select > Feather = 100. Hit the delete key 5 times and deselect. Change the layer’s mode to Color burn.

8. Let’s put in the countries. Click on the “land” layer and create a new layer. Use whatever size pencil you want and draw in the first country…draw out into the ocean as well then fill the whole shape ((pic antique 12)). Draw each new country on its own layer and each in a different color ((pic antique 13)). Once you have all of your countries in place, ctrl-click on the “land” layer and Select > Inverse. Hit the delete key on each country layer. This deletes the fill out in the ocean. When done, deselect. Now to prevent our countries from overlapping, we will do something similar for each country. Click on your first country (in the layers palette). Ctrl-click on this layer then click on the layer of a country that touches this first country. Hit the delete key and do the same for any other country that touches this first one. Continue this process on down the line for all subsequent countries ((pic antique 14)). Next, for each country change the layer’s fill to 0%. Click back on the first country layer. Add a layer style of Inner glow…use red, opacity is 75%, size is 10. You can use as many different colors for the countries as you like but try to use at least 3, I have used 8…red, orange, yellow, brown, green, blue, purple, and gray. Next, each country will get a layer style of Pattern overlay. The pattern I use is one of diagonal lines set to multiply with an opacity of 35%. You can use whatever pattern you choose as long as it is gray-scale. If you happen to have some pattern that you would rather use then skip ahead to the next step. I have also flipped the pattern so that the lines go a different way in order to help accentuate each country from another. Lastly, each country gets a layer style of Color overlay that matches the color of the inner glow set to overlay at 67% opacity…thus I have 8 different color overlays. The pattern overlay in multiply mode ensures that the white lines of the pattern will be invisible and the color overlay in overlay mode combines with the black lines of the pattern to produce a colored line pattern. Lastly, turn down the opacity of each country’s layer to 50% ((pic antique 15)).

[Steel General]

Excellent as always my friend, I will give this a whirl in the next few days.

PS - I have compiled this into a MS-Word (2003) file and attached it for those who want to download it.

[Steel General]

Yeah I think I actually like the wood cut better than the lines.

[Sagenlicht]

I just stumbled across this tutorial

Nice work Ascension

Here's a quick convert of SG'S doc to pdf for easier handling

SG - if you cant create pdf's yourself take a look at this.

PDFCreator is free (its open source), easy to use and fast. I use it myself when I am on my windows box. Once installed you can create pdf's out of any application. Just go to print and select the pdf creator printer.

[jfrazierjr]

I just stumbled across this tutorial

Nice work Ascension

Here's a quick convert of SG'S doc to pdf for easier handling

SG - if you cant create pdf's yourself take a look at this.

PDFCreator is free (its open source), easy to use and fast. I use it myself when I am on my windows box. Once installed you can create pdf's out of any application. Just go to print and select the pdf creator printer.

Sagenlicht, does it have the ability to append to an existing file? I have had need to do that and only one of the three I have tried actually does that. I THINK, its PrimoPDF, but not 100% sure...