How do I make a beautiful legend and border for my RPG-style map?

[SJS]

I am failing at using the Search tool on this forum, and yet I'm sure this question has been asked and answered. What I'm wondering is if there's a nice tutorial for putting those professional, finishing touches on RPG-style maps.

For example, how does one make a border like this:

55049d1370031821-may-2013-entry-skyradan-surrounds-skyradan5.jpg

How does one make a legend on a scroll-like background, like this?

I use PS CS6, so a photoshop-centric link or tut would be perfect for me.

Is this a matter of finding some images you can drop in to PS, or does PS have some functions that enable these to be created?

Thanks,

SJS

[Hai-Etlik]

For the scroll, you simply draw a scroll. For the knot pattern, you draw one small part of it, then repeat it. In Inkscape I would use "Pattern Along Path". There's probably something similar in Illustrator but I expect its probably not available in Photoshop.

A "draw a stylized scroll" button is a but overly specific a thing to expect and really it wouldn't be able to do much more than inject a bit of clipart anyway. This would have the same potential problems of not visually matching the rest of the image as if you grabbed some clipart and imported it yourself.

[SJS]

For the scroll, you simply draw a scroll.

I presume you mean hand-draw the scroll, either pen and ink and then scan it into PS or paint it directly using PS's paint tools. Fair enough, but probably beyond my artistic skills in the foreseeable future. I didn't expect a button for the purpose - but I did wonder if it would be possible to use clip art and, by working with blending modes and other tools, and perhaps adding a bit of alterations directly - to get the clip art to blend well enough with the map.

The knot pattern advice you give sounds more within my capabilities, but I'm sure it would take a lot of learning along the way. Thank you.

[Hai-Etlik]

I presume you mean hand-draw the scroll, either pen and ink and then scan it into PS or paint it directly using PS's paint tools. Fair enough, but probably beyond my artistic skills in the foreseeable future. I didn't expect a button for the purpose - but I did wonder if it would be possible to use clip art and, by working with blending modes and other tools, and perhaps adding a bit of alterations directly - to get the clip art to blend well enough with the map.

The knot pattern advice you give sounds more within my capabilities, but I'm sure it would take a lot of learning along the way. Thank you.

The fundamental problem with clipart is that is will have been drawn by a particular person in a particular way at a particular scale using particular tools. This gives a particular visual signature that will be distinct. Messing with blending modes isn't going to hide mismatches in that. Typefaces have a similar problem which makes them one of the clearest tell tales of computer mapping, even in maps that otherwise hide it very effectively. For one of my maps I made everything from scratch just for that map, right down to the fonts, just because I wanted to avoid such mismatches.

Scale is probably the biggest give away so be careful about how you scale things relative to one another. Look at them and try to figure out where they have comparable detail, line width, etc.

[SJS]

Thank you.

[Diamond]

All I know is that the guy that made that map is a no-account, shifty-eyed Californian.