The Realm of Quindia

[Xilphridous]

Although created completely in the computer, I tried to achieve a hand drawn look. The mountains are vector images, but each one is rendered individually, as are the hills, trees, etc. They are all drawn with a Wacom tablet using a stylus.

Compelling job! I love it!

Only a question: do you think you would obtain the same beautiful result using a different professional sw? For ex. Photoshop?

I don't use Corel, so I'm asking if there's something I can't do with Photoshop...

[quindia]

Only a question: do you think you would obtain the same beautiful result using a different professional sw? For ex. Photoshop?

U often use photoshop as well because the pressure sensitive tools work amazing well with the Wacom. I could certainly get the same results, but the utility of the map would be reduced for several reasons.

1. While the layers method would work perfectly well in photoshop, in my map each mountain, tree, and hill is an individual (and editable) object. I can move, resize, flip, etc. every single object.

2. The vector map is scalable. I can reduce or enlarge portions, crop out sections to use as the basis for more detail, and alter line widths and the like to maintain the aesthetics. In photoshop, you can certainly resample the image and crop it, but you will be stuck with the line widths when you zoom in.

3. My original map in the computer is 24x30". I had it printed on canvas and it hangs in a frame on the wall of my game room. I designed at that scale for that reason. I have a hi-res jpeg at that size stored on the computer, but it runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 12Mb as a flattened image. I would hate to use that file as my working one with the ten or twelve layers I have in the CorelDraw file!

[pyrandon]

Clarence, your comments on this are well said, although I believe that only #2 is really an insurmountable issue: PS, by its nature, does not allow scaling and such to the nth degree (it's not vector, but raster.) If this were of interest to me as a cartographer, I would create the image in Adobe Illustrator--which is vector--and then only do final touch ups in Photoshop. The two programs work so well together. Corel's a great program--and as is shown here, very powerful!--but the Adobe apps could collectively do the same. It's a common mantra here at the Guild, well supported by hundreds of maps, that the program is not as important as the user. Wouldn't you agree, Clarence?

[quindia]

It's a common mantra here at the Guild, well supported by hundreds of maps, that the program is not as important as the user. Wouldn't you agree, Clarence?

Absolutely. I use both Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photopaint for non-vector edits. I also have Adobe Illustrator, but I am much more familiar with CorelDraw. The later program actually used to be more powerful, but each time a new version comes out additions and upgrades have made the programs nearly identical. The main difference are the interfaces and I am simply more comfortable with the CorelDraw tools. I could have created the same thing in Illustrator or Freehand or any number of different programs.