Small city map: mixing gis data and photoshop

[Francissimo]

Hello fellow cartographers! On that map i started with GIS data, mainly forests roads buildings and rivers. I also use contour line to help me paint the relief with some bewell effects. I intend to represent hills with a low slope so i tried to be soft with the bewell effect. After the relief was done, i imported my layers (roads ect) in photoshop, use layer styles to improve the render, add a few hedges and export to illustrator for labeling and symbols. Hope you'll like it!
StJean_-02.jpg

[arsheesh]

This looks very nice Francissimo! Nice technique.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Francissimo]

Thanks arsheesh, my technique can be gratefull to all those tutorials that can be found in the forum, including yours

[ravells]

This looks lovely. is there any chance you could post a larger image?

[Francissimo]

Thanks ravells, i'll try to post the map cut in 2 parts tomorrow, the files are at my work the resolution of the map isnt much better than this one but they are a few more details too see with a bigger version.
By the way, what's the average size of your PS document at the end of a project? Mine are often over 200 mb and the computer starts to feel bad at that point.

[Salama]

Very good looking map, thanks for sharing!

[Francissimo]

Thx Salama, here is a bigger version of the map with a few more details visible, This is the limit of the map, my ps document became too big to have a better resolution
Attachment 63470

[Ilanthar]

Beautiful map Francissimo! My only (slight) critics would be about the roads : very good when zoomed out but a bit too "google overlaying" when zoomed in.

[Francissimo]

thanks Ilanthar, and i agreee with your comment on roads. My problem was that the road layer is above my relief layer so i played with transparency on roads to let the relief visible , when you zoom in the tricks is less efficient. Maybe i should have add a little texture to the road layer, but my ps file was already really big so i thought it was time to stop adding effects before the computer burns

[Katto]

I like the first smaller version. The larger map shows compression artifacts in the background texture and different quality elements e.g. crisp text and (rail-)roads vs. blurry buildings, background.
What about slight differences in the roof colours?
I like this style and hope to see more in the future.