Help please - colour overlay

[torstan]

Ah, no problem at all.

The layer mask means that you're only going to see the areas that are white on the mask. So the layer mask on the gradient pattern means that you're only showing the land colours over the land areas - so you won't have a green sea.

The emboss layers were taken from the image you have in your tutorial. I just copied in your green land layer. I then desaturated it (Colours->Desaturate).

I place this layer over the gradient layer and set the blend mode to soft light. This lightens the gradient of colours where the 'embossed layer' is lighter and darkens it where it is dark. I duplicated the layer as this increases the lightening and darkening effect. So the embossed layers give you the light and shade, the gradient layer gives you the colour.

[torstan]

Also, I got the mask by using the select by colour tool (shift-O) and clicking on the black sea area that you have. I saved the selection (Selection->Save to Channel) and used that when I applied the layer mask (right-click->Add Layer Mask... and then use the Mask from Channel option).

[icosahedron]

Thanks Torstan. That's a different method of using a mask than I tried, but it seems to give a similar result. This blend stuff is new to me, but I'm getting there.

I played with the gradient editor again and made a gradient I called 'Latitude'. It needs some work, but I've got the basic idea. The sections weren't blue-highlighting before. Sometimes I have to double-click. My mouse might be wearing out, I've noticed a few false clicks lately.

Just one more bug to iron out - my embossed layers are currently partially transparent, giving the land a washed out look cos I did a black to alpha so I could see through them. I'll work on them some more using the suggestions above and then post what I have.

[torstan]

Ah, you probably don't want to make the emboss layer semi-transparent. I'd suggest playing with the different blend modes. They're very powerful and will really help get the results you are after.

[icosahedron]

Yep, I didn't understand anything about Layer modes. I just found that dropdown and played with that instead of running black to alpha. Makes a huge difference.

Here's what I'm getting now - a far cry from my plain green.

I just need to play with the gradient some more. I'm happy with the polar and temperate regions, but the tropics are too stripey. Maybe I should cut out the equatorial forest altogether. Not quite sure how to fix it, but I'll probably know it when I see it.

Thanks for the help guys.

[torstan]

You can always use the smudge tool on your colour gradient layer to move the colours around. That should help to avoid the overly stripey look.

Otherwise, that looks really nice. Good work!

[icosahedron]

I tried two more things before I turned in last night, just to make it look prettier, but I found problems with both additions.

1. I tried to replace the plain black background layer with the cloud rendered blue I used in my tut, but the land looked 'floaty' because I hadn't been able to feather the coast this time. With three, possibly four different coast patterns now I'm not sure which to feather, or whether they all need feathering. I'll try them out when I get time later.

2. I tried to paint a few mountain peaks white, but found that even if I painted on the gradient layer, supposedly underneath the embossed pattern, the white still came out on top of the embossed pattern, obliterating the mountains. I can't figure how to paint underneath the embossed layers. Maybe it's just a problem with white? The arctic regions seem to lose pattern, too. I'll experiment later.

Maybe I'm ready for those regional map tutorials now...?

I wasn't entirely happy with the smudge effects, but that's something else to work on. I'd welcome alternative suggestions for correcting the stripiness.

Cheers.

[torstan]

Yep, you might be past those regional tutes now ...

1. you can blend the sea with the land by blurring your layer mask. This will smudge the hard edge and help a smooth transition between the land and the sea. Is this what you mean when you say 'feathering'? If not, can you post your current version and say what it is that you don't like?

2. White. Yep, it's a problem with extreme values. If you have white or black, soft light layers won't touch them. If you have a light region in your lower layer, then the light regions of the soft light layer will have more effect than the dark regions. If you have a dark region in the lower layer, the dark regions have more of an effect than the light regions. If it's white, then the light regions lighten it - but it's white so you don't see anything - and the dark regions have no effect.

There are a couple of solutions. First, you can use a darker shade than pure white. Try something like an 80% grey - perhaps tint it a little blue. The emboss layers should lighten up the highlights to almost pure white and the shadows will still show.

The alternative is to duplicate your emboss layer and set it's blend mode to multiply and a low opacity, say 20%. That will lock in shadows independent of what the lower layers look like.

3. With the smudge - make sure you use a soft brush so that you don't get hard edges on it. Post what you've got and why you don't like it and I'm sure someone here will be able to offer a solution.

[icosahedron]

Past them??? I doubt that.

Thanks for the explanation and suggestions, Torstan, I'll try those out and see what happens.

In my first efforts, when I was handling the Colour-Select and manipulating the land and sea, I had the 'feather' tickbox checked at the bottom of the toolbox window, and I found that this softened the coast similar to a blur. I'll try the blur instead and post some examples.

I'm tending not to save stuff at present so I don't clutter my machine with trials, besides, redoing the stuff helps commit it to my own memory. Having said that...

I was trying out various feathers on the coastlines, and I got to wondering whether I could do some sea ice. So I had a go.

Instead of the plain black layer at the bottom of the stack, I made a layer called 'sea'. I put my friesian cow land/sea pattern on it, colour-selected the sea part, then applied the 'square wood frame' gradient to the sea with bi-linear triangular wave formatting.

This gave a coloured bar top and bottom in approximately the right place. Then I took the eraser and erased the straight edges to a suitable shape, I then colour selected the wooden bar with enough threshold to capture all the wood but nothing else and applied cloud and emboss to the selection. I then adjusted the brightness and contrast to look like ice.

Finally, I colour-selected the remaining transparent sea, applied clouds, colourised it, and feathered it.

I'm quite pleased with the effect, though there's still something not quite right with the feathering on the coasts, it looks like a drawn outline.

Edit: BTW, where's the pic gone from post #25?

[RobA]

BTW, where's the pic gone from post #25?

Seems to have been replaced with a 1x1px gif. Can you re-upload?

-Rob A>