Opinions on a test, please and thank you

[Daistallia]

An issue of pixelation came up with my contour lines on my entry for the lite map challenge. I was messing around to see if a technique in general worked. How do these lines look?

Edit: Whoops, wrong map! Here's the right one.

ex pirate.png

[Redrobes]

Hard to know what to say here as the lines dont appear to be like contour lines. Also, not sure what the pixellation issue is with them.
I'll post my mini tut on doing contour lines to 3D and maybe it will help.
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...l=1#post296662
If your after getting thin contour lines then do the zebra pattern and then do the edge detect on them.

[Daistallia]

The pixealization of my lines in general, not just coasts, but the contours were specifically an issue.

See: https://cartographersguild.com/showt...l=1#post348558

Mouse made a suggestion about blowing up the image, drawing them with a fuzzy tool, and shrinking the image.

This was a quick whack up as a test and the particular lines there were coasts.
Here's one with some contours:

ex pirate c.png

And I've had issues getting good lines with edge detect.

[Mouse]

If you are drawing your lines as lines rather than using Redrobes technique...

The easiest way to get good hand drawn lines is to work at least twice as large as you intend to 'publish', be that here or anywhere else.

You don't have to keep blowing up and shrinking things down again. Just work with an original that is twice as big as you want the final map to be, and shrink down any jpg or png files you export from it.

I think you may have gotten the wrong idea about the fuzzy tool. I tried to stress the slightly soft edged one, which at just 3-5 pixels across is way sharper than what I would call fuzzy.

This is the one I would use

Mouses choice.png

[Redrobes]

Ok, so take said contours, fix to black and white, flood fill to zebra, smooth, whack up to max contrast, edge detect - voila. Just like my tut said. Whats the issue ?

Edit: I have reread it all and I still dont get why there is an issue with the edge detect. I think I am tired and ill have to take a nap and have another look with a fresh pair of eyes tomorrow.

[Daistallia]

With edge detect I end up with lines too thick and weird effects on the colors.

[Mouse]

I get the feeling that you are looking for instant perfection and failing to find any kind of satisfaction from something that is simply a bit better than the way you were doing it before?

I go though days and whole weeks of that kind of negativity - usually caused by a touch too much perfectionism. However, I just have to remind myself that mapping is actually fun, providing you don't expect to become J.Edward, Diamond, Sapiento, Voolf (or any one of a hundred extremely talented mappers) overnight.

Have fun - gather all the little tips that people give you and store them away for later use if they aren't immediately relevant, and learn at your own pace - but above all...

Have fun

[Falconius]

Well with the paint brush you could turn on smooth stroke and edit the dynamics options to be consistent. With area selection you could turn on anti aliasing or feather edges, although I don't like to work with either of those options because they work and you end up not selecting everything you wanted. What I used to do was do the black and white coast mask (or a new mask for each elevation), like you've got there, and then once I had the selection go to Select>Border then once I have that selcted (you can choose how thick you want it and if you want to feather (smooth) the edges, I leave it off though).
Step one.jpg
step two.jpg
step three.jpg
step four.jpg