[Award Winner] My atlas style in PS

[casusev]

Long time lurker. Just wanted to thank you Ascension for this guide. I'm a novice to map making and PS, so this has been a breath of fresh air.

This is the second map (much better than the first attempt). I made it for a buddy of mine for his D&D game. Still a WIP. I'm waiting on the names for all the cities and landmarks before they get entered in. Anyway let me know what you think and/or if you have any tips!

rtsSh.jpg

[Pandi]

Hey guys,
This is my first post to your awesome forum and by the looks of it this is the place to start.
I am a first time PS user and i have cs5
I am having trouble with step 8 right after you create the copy of ocean and set it to grey 50% and name it base. I get something similar to your picture. but after...
it says click on ocean and duplicate it then get your airbrush and define the land mass and ocean. do i do that on the base layer? because if i try and brush on the ocean copy layer i cant see any changes under the pure black/white pic. I also didnt understand your explanation on how to 'link' layers. my link chain button is greyed out.
Any help is GREATLY appreciated. Loving the site already
pandi

[Pandi]

Stopped being lazy and finally got through this tutorial. I think i did pretty well for a first time PS user.

EscaNoVillages.jpg

[Ascension]

Yep, looks pretty good. I'd suggest going to the shelf layer and use a low-flow eraser and erase some of the stuff in the ocean just so that it doesn't look so busy.

[JediKnight83]

Ascension,
Thank you so much for this tutorial. I have done a couple of very large scale maps with it, Though I think it might be better if I did separate continent maps. I was just curious what the scaling was? In step 51, you have lat/long lines drawn at every 200 px. What would the degrees be?

[siby]

Hi,

I was trying this tutorial tonight but I'm having trouble with step 21. When I do the five color gradient overlay I only get a grey selection. No color shows up. How do you do the multiple colors? just do the gradient overlay over five times?

I'm in RGB color mode.

21. Ctrl-click on the “base” layer (in the layers palette) to load it as a selection (in newer versions of Photoshop you have to ctrl-click on the thumbnail in the layers palette). Select > Inverse then hit the delete key then deselect. Add a layer style of gradient overlay; we’ll use 4 colors with 5 stops as follows: color 1 at the 5% position is flat white, color code FFFFFF (rgb 255, 255, 255); color 2 at the 35% position is a dark olive green, color code 405018 (rgb 64, 80, 24); color 3 at the 60% position is the same dark olive green; color 4 at the 85% position is a dark flesh, color code DAC094 (rgb 218, 192, 14; and color 5 at the 100% position is a papyrus, color code F0E6BE (rgb 240, 230, 190). Set the blend mode of the gradient to hard light with 100% opacity. Next we’ll add a layer style of outer glow: use a light blue, any will do for now and you can change it later but I use 40C8FF (rgb 64, 200, 255). Set the blend mode of the outer glow to screen at 25% opacity and a size of 11. If you want a lighter gradient then add a layer style of color overlay of white and set the blend mode to soft light and then turn down the opacity until you are happy with it.

Thank you for this great tutorial and my apologies for not being able to follow your directions.

Siby

[Gidde]

did they disappear? i have a copy i think, but my interwebs got knocked out by a lightning strike last night so it'll be a couple days before i can get it uploaded (can't attach from the phone)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gidde]

Ok, I've added the Gimp translation PDF to the top post in the thread after reading through the thread and making sure Ascension had intended for that to happen (and yeah, he did say that at one point). Unfortunately the palettes and such that I had developed got lost with my recent hard drive wipe

[carsonw]

This looks intimidating, but this weekend i'll give it a try.

[wisemoon]

Hi Ascension,

I am actually using Kindari's re-worked version of your tutorial, but I had a question. I have a fairly powerful computer (tri-core AMD Phenom II, plenty of RAM) and yet when I am working on a map using your method, Photoshop slows to a CRAWL. I am wondering, do you think it might be slow because of all the layer styles in your method? I like the effects, but if that is what is causing the huge rendering times I am thinking it might be better to find other ways to get the same effect.

If you don't have any idea, I guess I will just have to experiment. From working with Gimp, I know there are ways to get similar types of effects by simply stacking layers and using different filters. Although, I'm not sure that PS has the same filters as Gimp...some are the same, but oddly enough sometimes Gimp can do things that Photoshop can't, even though PS has a lot of great features and a lot of automation that Gimp doesn't have.

Anyway, I will play around with some things and if I find other ways to get the same effect, that don't slow PS down so much, I will post them.

wisemoon