[Award Winner] Saderan – a tutorial

[Zahr]

Group with last layer/group with previous is simply called create clipping mask in later versions of Photoshop.

[Loki23]

Brand new to both the forums and to Photoshop and just THANK YOU!

Absolutely stunning tutorial that even a complete novice (/idiot) like me could follow easily.

Thank you once again and now it's back to it for a second attempt.

[Lyrillies]

Hey there,
thanks for this amazing tutorial! It is so great to be able to learn how to make maps like that, thanks for taking the time and putting together this tutorial for others!
I only have some difficulties with making my land look as big as it actually is and not like a small island, but I'll just try again.

[SJS]

Thank you for this great tutorial. I learned / started to dimly re-remember a lot about Photoshop. So much more to learn. Here's my first map, following closely to your tutorial. I love it. A great starting point.

tutorial-firstmap.jpg

[Elothan]

Well, since I have been absent from mapping from a long time now, I felt a need to expand my horizons, so I gave this tut a quick try after dinner and ended up with this: isleofue.png
Its rather small (since I followed the tuts size recomendations, but I really like the style, and after I have experimented a bit more, I might even try to make a "real" map insted of just a quick try with it

[groovey]

Hello Tear (or anyone who can help).

I have a little problem and I can't figure out how to bypass it because I'm not really a pro with Photoshop, just got the basics that I've learned reading tutorials in the forum.

I love Tear's map style, thing is, I got my own sea idea (that I got from a map I love from one of the talented creators of this forum), what I need is just the part to add the land texture, mountains and vegetation, I think I can do rivers myself with a technique I tried before with good results. So really, instead of using the whole style for my map, it'll be a mix of techniques for different things, but in my head projecting how they'd look together they go well together, but that's not an issue.

The issue is I got my world's land masses ready, as an outline (as a stroke), that I can fill in another layer as I wish. Skipping the two first parts of the tutorial plus the coast effects and trying directly to do the elevation part and mountains doesn't work. I add the "base color" layer as it says and then the "elevation" one, but when I try to paint on the elevation layer mask nothing happens.

I suspect it might have to do with how the creation of land masses is done in the beginning of the tutorial, and the Threshold adjustment layer attacked to it? I tried adding one to the layer with my land masses in white and the sea as black (to try to reproduce the result from the first step of the tutorial), but still nothing.

Also, in the tutorial I see that when a Threshold layer adjustment is created it sticks in the same layer that you had selected to do that, but in my case, it creates the Threshold thing in a new layer above the one I had selected, I can't tell if that's how it's supposed to work or what.

I hope I could explain the issue with enough clarity. Does anyone know how to skip directly to steps 3 and 4 and how to set my land masses layer to start working those steps?

I'd really appreciate any help because I'm stuck there till I get the mountains and the terrain, this is in fact the part where I always fail and give up in all my map trials, and this time I'm really so excited about this project (for the first time, I love the land masses I got) I'd feel brokenhearted to abandon it.

Edit: never mind, I figured out what the silly issue was.

[-=Orion=-]

Help!!!
Great tutorial up until page 3, where you copy merged everything into the Alpha 1 channel. It works, but when I go back into the layers and delete the threshold layer, it just becomes clouds again!

I am using Photoshop CS6 and am new to it, so help would be much appreciated

EDIT: I didn't follow the next few steps. All good now!

[-=Orion=-]

This is my first map that I made with this tutorial!
Saderan Map Final.png
It doesn't quite look like the one in the pdf probably because I'm using Photoshop CS6, but I think it still looks pretty cool.

[DigitalFable]

Going to give this a try today and see what I can come up with using the steps in the tutorial. Thank you for supplying it!

[TaylorH]

Hello. I'm almost finished producing a map using this lovely tutorial, but I have one problem, which is rather strange because everything else has been fine. I'm on the vegetation Grass layer. In CS6 there is no Filter > Texture > Grain, but apparently Grain can be found in Filter Gallery, however, with the Grass layer selected it says that I can't open the Gallery because there's nothing selected. Grass layer is above base colour and below elevation. Any help?

Edit: My apologies. I simply forgot to fill the layer first.