I started a map for a tabletop campaign I am running. I am new to map making but not new to Photoshop. I got all the continents and rivers laid out, base colors added, and started placing the major cities for Moray - one of the continents - shown in the attached image. None of the other continents have anything more than the base colors so I clipped them out to reduce the file size.

I used the "diffuse cloud filter" method to create the coastlines. The forms were great but there were a lot of gaps and pixelation issues that I just couldn't get fixed in Photoshop to my liking. So I imported it into Illustrator, use the Live Trace tool to convert the coastlines to paths, then used the pen tool to fill in all the gaps and clean up any areas I didn't like. It took a few hours (the full map is huge) but I think it was worth it as I really like how crisp and clean the coastlines are now. Once that was done I rasterized the paths and exported it to go back into Photoshop.

Once back in Photoshop I laid in the base colors, created city symbols, and some text. I've tried to add mountains and forests a few times but haven't been happy with how they look. I need to do a bit more digging around the forums and try to find a tutorial that outputs something I think will fit the map style. But, just so you know, there are mountains in the NW and S when the two rovers originate... no magic river flows to see here. I also tried to place the coastal cities in places where there are natural harbors and the land-locked cities where I thought it made sense (yes, I've learned a lot reading through this forum in the last few days!).

Any feedback or advice is more than welcome.

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