How do I make a concentric coastline effect?

[rinne]

I'm Rinne. Hello, everyone. :'3

As mentioned in the thread title, I have a question. How would one go about making similar effects to those found along the coastlines of this map, specifically the little dashed lines? I like how it looks and am trying to replicate it in a map I'm currently working on, but I'm not that experienced with Photoshop so I wouldn't know. (I've attached an image as reference.) Thank you in advance!

[amberroberts09]

Welcome to the forum. Sorry can't solve your question.

[sai]

Check out this tutorial at the 5:52 mark:

Fantasy Cartography with Adobe Photoshop #14 - YouTube

It's basically a stroked selection with noise to break up the lines.

[mystic badger]

I Had the same question in my mind. Thanks !

[Larb]

Basically with your landmass selected, you are expanding the selection by X number of pixels, stroking it, expanding it again, stroking it again, etc (that's how I do it anyway). don't forget to use the smooth selection option to prevent to looking squarish as it expands further out.

[Sharpes]

Yeah, I'm having a similar problem with this as well (using CS5). Once I've selected my coast outline with my magic wand tool, used edit>stroke and then expanded it I get the parallel lines but I also get it internally on the land as well. How do you ensure that when you use stroke you only get the water side of the coast? (apologies if this has been asked elsewhere!)

[Arandil]

Mask the layer that you only want to affect, then work your operation within that mask.

[Sharpes]

Ok, and how do I do that with the layer I want to affect? I've got my background layer and another layer with a black outline of my island but not sure what to do from there :S (PS noobie here =/)

[Chashio]

@Sharpes: With the magic wand tool (with contiguous setting checked at top) select your water and invert the selection (from the menu bar under Select > Inverse or use the keypad: Ctrl+Shift+I). Then make a new layer and fill your selection with white or any color, then set the layer Fill % to 0% (in the layers panel underneath the opacity %). Do your strokes on that layer. There are actually a number of ways to stroke it. You might like this set of actions I created to speed up the process: Photoshop Actions: Fading parallel Coastal Lines for Oceans and Lakes If you need any additional help, just ask.

And here's a quick tutorial for creating a fading stroke effect using the OuterGlow layer effect: Fading parallel coastal lines with OuterGlow

[Sharpes]

Thanks Chashio, those actions seemed to have done the trick. How do I then make some of the lines more jagged? For e.g. I have some tiny islands with circles around them and would like to make the shape a bit more organic. (I guess now I'm after something more specific rather than the whole map.)