First Photoshop Attempt

[JMOxx75]

After reading a few posts and seeing a few maps I attempted to make a map. I am not very good with colors. I originally started out trying to color the entire map but I couldn't get anything right except the water. I also tried to do the non color map but I can't get the water to look right without using non water colors. I was just hoping that by posting it here I could get some advice.
My Blog, image was too big for photo bucket.

[torstan]

I actually think the colours are pretty good. Tan and blue are a good contrast so I'd tick with that as a base and then add faded greens and brown to the land with the airbrush tool to map in different terrains.

Someone's going to say it so I'll jump in first. Rivers. They don't fork as they flow downstream. Also, if there is a lake, there's a river from it that connects to the sea. These are definitely things you need to fix.

I like the symbol set - very clean and neat. I'm a little confused by the dotted lines - are they roads or boundaries?

Finally, welcome to the guild! Post a welcome note in the appropriate forum but it's good to have you here already. Nice first map, and a little bit of rep to get you going.

PS you can attach files to the forum directly using the attachment manager - the paperclip at the top of the post editor when you compose a post. Definitely better to do that than link to an external site.

[JMOxx75]

According to the attachment guidelines the file is too big to post in the forum directly thats why I posted it in my blog. I went through and fixed all the rivers. I haven't made a legend yet but the dotted lines are roads/trade routes.

[Ascension]

I think it looks pretty good as well as is but I might make the land a little more tan instead of light yellow, more like the color of dry sand...but that's just me. Nice job.

[Pandora]

The map looks good overall, but both the mountains and the text are in black which might make some text "disappear" in the mountains. The inverted text (white with black border) doesnt really seem to work because you still have the sandy color under the mountain icons. It might be a good start to darken the area around the mountains for more contrast for the text. Alternatively you could go for a different text color, but an area with light and dark pixels is never easy to write text on in any case.

[JMOxx75]

I played with some tan colors with and without textures. I really didn't like it because it looked to bland. I'm not an artist so trying to mark up the continent to break up the color is something I can't do well yet so I used the Paint Daubs Filter. Not really sure I even like it but it does break up the color a bit.

[Bohunk]

I like the colors as well. The font and symbols look very nice together. The thing that bugs me the most and I could be completely wrong in this is that the map would look a whole lot cleaner if you take out the large light blue in the sea and go with a smaller version or no off shade blue at all.

You other maps down the page are quite nice as well.

[torstan]

You can always make your mountains blend a bit into the land by either lowering the opacity of your mountains layer, or setting it to multiply or overlay and lowering the opacity. That should make the mountain lines a darker version of your background colour. Then the black text will read more clearly.

I'm definitely having an issue with the blue dotted lines in the sea. They look very space age rather than the hand drawn feel of the mountains. Perhaps replace these with a dashed black line instead?

Coming along nicely though!

You can also attach an image inline in the body of a post. After you have added it to the attachment manager, when you are back in your post click the paperclip again and click on the name of the attachment you want to place.

[JMOxx75]

Ok I took out the water for now and changed the opacity of the mountains and hills.

[torstan]

That's looking good. Have you tried changing the hills and mountains to an overlay layer? I find that you can get good results with two mountain layers, one overlay at 50% and another normal at 50%. It just makes it less desaturated and brings a warmer brown colour through it.