Isolden (my 1st world map)

[ChickPea]

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with PSP but can the glow be placed on a separate layer where you can either change the blend mode or adjust the opacity?

There's a simple guide to labelling here, but I don't know if it'll tell you anything you didn't know already...

http://www.fantasticmaps.com/2013/06/simple-labeling/

[Larb]

Does PSP X4 have any other options for the outer glow besides size? In Photoshop you basically have Size, Range, and Spread, and by adjusting a mix of them you can produce a fairly thin but smooth glow around the text.

[Neyjour]

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with PSP but can the glow be placed on a separate layer where you can either change the blend mode or adjust the opacity?

There's a simple guide to labelling here, but I don't know if it'll tell you anything you didn't know already...

http://www.fantasticmaps.com/2013/06/simple-labeling/

Thanks for the link, but even if I could figure out how to get just the glow onto a separate layer, it wouldn't do any good because it's way too big, even at the smallest setting.

But I think I've found a combination of font and dropshadow that doesn't look too bad. I increased the Duvall font to 13 (instead of 12, from the test image) and the black bleed isn't too noticeable. Now I have to pick a different font for the Cities, Towns, and Villages. Once I've done that, I'll post another update and see what you guys think.

Does PSP X4 have any other options for the outer glow besides size? In Photoshop you basically have Size, Range, and Spread, and by adjusting a mix of them you can produce a fairly thin but smooth glow around the text.

The only options for Outer Glow are a slider bar for Size (with no numeric indicators), Opacity, and Colour. That's it...

[Abu Lafia]

Hello again, i tried out some things (in gimp though, don't have PSP) but i think one major problem is, that a fontsize of 12 or 13 pt is just really small and thereby relatively pixelated. Have you tried making the label with outerglow/shadow, etc. in a bigger size and just scaling it down to the size you need? I made the test with scaling your map bigger and having a font size of 30 pt (+ 2pt outerglow and dropshadow) and then scaling the labels down to ca. 12-13 pt.
Isolden Font test.jpg
I used the Grantham Font by Paul Lloyd (bold) for it. Bolton would be another suggestion, i personally like. But i don't know if they might fit with Duvall. Hope it helps, i know how much headache labelling can give, so good luck

[Neyjour]

What a good idea! Thanks! I'm getting really tired and need a break, but my next work session I'm going to give that a try.

I think you're right about the Bolton font. It's nice, but it doesn't look like it goes too well with the Duvall. But I'm going to give the Grantham a try. That one does look quite good with the Duvall! Thanks for the links.

Okay... another update of what I've got right now (more font testing later).

Isolden (font test 2).PNG

Points of Interest: Duvall
Towns / Villages: Folkard
Cities: God of War

And I picked out colours from the shields for the City names, so now they really stand out from all the surrounding labels. I was feeling kind of iffy about how colourful that was, but I think I'm starting to like it. Even with the map scaled way down, you can instantly pick them out. Heh.

[Ilanthar]

I don't know which version of PSP you got, but I use mainly a combination of dropped shadows with a blur (like width 1 px and blur 7 px) on a under layer. It's looking good, I really like the details and the shields fit very well on the map.

[ChickPea]

In all the talk about the labelling yesterday, I forgot to comment on your shields on the map! They look great and I like the brighter colours to make them really pop from the background. I'm loving this map so far.

[Abu Lafia]

To make the labels of the capital-cities(?) in the colour of the shields is a great idea, it looks really cool! Looking forward to see it on the whole map.

[Neyjour]

I don't know which version of PSP you got, but I use mainly a combination of dropped shadows with a blur (like width 1 px and blur 7 px) on a under layer. It's looking good, I really like the details and the shields fit very well on the map.

Thank you! I'm using X4. I've occasionally put dropshadows on under-layers for battlemap objects (by just duplicating the object/layer)... I don't know why I didn't think to do it with text! Doh. Thanks! I gave it a try, but unfortunately, at such a small font size, there doesn't seem to be much difference. But still, this would be a good way to use different layer modes on just the dropshadows, without it affecting the text!

In all the talk about the labelling yesterday, I forgot to comment on your shields on the map! They look great and I like the brighter colours to make them really pop from the background. I'm loving this map so far.

Thanks so much!

To make the labels of the capital-cities(?) in the colour of the shields is a great idea, it looks really cool! Looking forward to see it on the whole map.

Thank you!


Made a little bit of progress in the past couple days:

* Brightened the shields for Neron and Dehrenhar.

* Re-did all the labels, and I think I'm going to stick with the 3 from my last update. Although, I'm not too sure about the "Kingdom" labels. I may make them straight (and larger) instead of curved, and just use curved labels for the smaller areas/regions.

* Added a few new icons/locations, but I still have some missing labels, and a few more icons/locations I want to add.

* I haven't started on the pirate flags yet, but I've named the factions and put blank placeholders in the regions where they'll go. Poor Isolden is Pirate-infested... Well, except for those regions up North. I think even the pirates are too scared to mess with them.

Isolden (labeled) WIP-04 by Neyjour.jpg

[ChickPea]

Looking good. Your new font choices are a definite improvement, in my opinion.