[Award Winner] Making maps in Photoshop

[jezelf]

Thanks folks- glad this stuff is helping out. I wrote them because they were things I wanted to do as well -enjoy being creative!

wreed58: Sooo sorry - 2yrs later. I've been away, life , work , changing jobs and stuff like that, also migrated to world machine.

... Apologies for any unclear or confusing instructions. I'm sure the maps been long done by now, Jalyha thank you for stepping in! I'll answer this 'for the record' in case anyone else has the same problem.

Yes, clone a layer if you don't want to screw it up - Im always doing that for a fail safe ( or have your history brush on )

In general, I was winging and eyeballing it. The (Gaussian) blur radius and the colour you pick has a lot to do with it. Looks like your blur radius was not large enough. You can do these different areas on different layers so you have more control if you like the way you did one, but not the other. You can also merge them together and do a smaller blur with all of them, there's no real hard fast rule.

Concerning colours : a personal preference of course, but if you're not sure what's happening looking at reference is always the step I take. Check out real world maps and colour pick from there if you have to. Or print screen my tutorial into a new document in PS and colour pick from that. I sometimes have to step back and start again , break down a process and then do my own take on it on the second , (or 5th) try once I get my head around everything.


I've updated my first post on this thread with my new website address ( or here : jez-elf.com ) where you'll find a contact form at the bottom. I'll certainly help out where I can. Response should be less than a week or so. Advanced apologies if I take ages!