Extrasolar colony world

[jshoer]

I like 'Tall Tree!'

Here, I'm working on mountains. I plan to keep expanding and detailing the shading, maybe eventually hide the ridgeline layer.

Colony3.png

[Ilanthar]

It's quite an original style you're developing here.

[Tiluchi]

I like this style so far! I was a bit iffy about the perfectly-straight treelines, but since this is a science-fiction map I think the "digital" style makes sense. Plus they look much, much better with the shading.

[jshoer]

Thanks! I am going to be working on this shading for a while, I think. The perfectly straight ridge lines may just turn out to be guides for the shading. Or I might keep them, as you said, they contribute a little to the sci-fi feel. We'll see how it looks!

[jshoer]

I'm cooking along...here's the current state:
Colony4.png

My current plan is to finish this shading layer, then add some broad-brush shading to enhance the overall topography and some darker detail shading for more texture.

Just to see, here's what it looks like when I turn the ridgeline layer off:
Colony4a.png

[Tiluchi]

My current vote is for ridgelines being turned off, but I suppose that also depends on which color scheme, if any, you have planned for the land... they make make the mountains easier to see if there's more color added.

[Azélor]

For me, it's the opposite.
I think its better turned on because all your elements have clear/sharp contrast but the shadows are not. Alone, they don't fit that well with the rest that you have for the moment.

[Greg]

Yeah, I kinda like them off too, but agree it really depends on how the rest of the map is going to be. Perhaps most of it is done, you'll get a better idea. It might even work best with a 50% opacity or something similar for their layer, so they're still providing the structure whilst also letting the shadows do their stuff.

[jshoer]

I spent the holidays adding a lot to the shading! There is still some touching up to do with smudging and adding deep shadows, I think, but I may go on to other things for a little bit.

With ridgelines:
Colony5.png

Without:
Colony5a.png

[jshoer]

Okay, I need some serious help...

I did a lot of work on this today, hitting Ctrl+S as I went. At some point, my entire computer locked up and I had to do a hard reboot. Now, when I try to open the .psd, I get a message that says

Adobe Photoshop CC 2018
Could not complete your request because it is not a valid Photoshop document.

I tried making a copy of the file, and opening the copy generates the same message.

Does anybody here know how to recover the file?

EDIT: Based on Googling, I've also tried (1) renaming the .psd to a .tiff and opening in Photoshop, which gave me a similar error, and (2) this utility, which supposedly extracts raster layers into .pngs but did not find any data to extract. So far I am just having a huge bummer of a time...