[Award Winner] My atlas style in PS

[Vascant]

Open Office has bugged some of my other things so if you download this and it doesn't open properly then let me know.

Word 2007 cannot read this, claims a problem with the XML and content

Edit: I can read the the first one downloaded a month ago though, just not this update

[Ascension]

I'm really beginning to hate Open Office. Now my file is corrupted beyond my patience to repair. Anyone with an old copy care to upload it here so that I can use that and then re-edit it?

[Horzamonk]

Here you go. Thanks again for this great tut.

[Dalakmar]

Hi all,

I'm trying to follow this excellent tutorial using Photoshop 7 and am becoming very frustrated - mostly with my lack of knowledge of Photoshop. So I was wondering, has anyone else out there with Photoshop 7, who knows what they are doing, followed this tutorial? Fancy giving an old geezer a hand by telling him the equivalent steps in Photoshop 7?

I shall struggle on for now because the maps look so good I just have to make one or two or . . .

Dal.

[Ascension]

The main thing that 7 does not have is the hard mix layer blending mode. You'll have to do Image-adjustments-threshhold or Image-adjustments-brightness/contrast for the "base" layer at the beginning.

[Dalakmar]

Hi Ascension,

Thank-you for the taking the time to reply. As I said in my earlier post I'm not that HOT on photoshop, but your post has nudged me in the right direction. However, (you knew there was an however coming didn't you) I'm now stuck on this part:

Click back on the “Ocean” layer (on the layers palette). Grab a big airbrush and at the top of the screen reduce the flow to 10%. I start with the 300-pixel airbrush and work my way down as needed. Use black to define the ocean and white to define the land.

How can I do this. I'm on the Ocean's layer - which is beneath the Base layer, right? Either I'm missing something or I'm really stupid. I'd probably have to go with the second option - can you offer any advice.

Dal.

[Ascension]

The process will be a lil longer for you but here's what you need to do:
1. Filter-render-clouds to start with.
2. Duplicate this layer (will be named background copy).
3. Create a new layer.
4. Use the 300 soft round airbrush with 10% flow, use black and white, paint black to fill in some ocean and white to fill in some land. You don't need a whole lot, just go over these places once or twice.
5. When you have something that you like, hit ctrl+shift+E (this merges all visible layers and puts the final output on it's own layer while leaving the rest of the layers below intact).
6. Image-adjustments-brightness/contrast=set the contrast up to 100.
7. If you see places where you want to make some further adjustments, then delete the top layer and go back to the painting layer. When happy repeat steps 5 and 6.
8. When you finally get to something that you can live with, rename the contrast adjusted layer to "base" and rename the "background copy" layer to "ocean".
9. Proceed with the rest of the tut.

EDIT: I re-attached the re-edited version (in post #1) and I hope this one works.

[Dalakmar]

Thanks Ascension,

Your'e a STAR! BUT . . . I'm still unable to follow your instructions - my BAD I can assure you. Here is what I've done so far and where I'm getting stuck. If you feel like helping me again it would be greatly appreciated. Hell, I might even name a continent after you!

1. I set up the document – 2000 x 2000 pixels at 300 PPI, RGB mode, 8bit. I make sure the colors are black and white then select Filter > Render > Clouds. Fine.

2. Copy this layer and rename it “Ocean”. Again, fine.

3.Rather than create a new layer then Edit > Fill = 50% gray and set the layer’s mode to hard mix and renaming this layer “Base” - which I cannot do in Photoshop 7 - I copy the layer again and go to Image > Adjustments > Posterize (levels: 2). When I have done this I end up with an image that looks like your Base Layer. I now have 3 layers: Background, Ocean and Base.

4. I now try to follow your next instruction: Click back on the “Ocean” layer (on the layers palette). Grab a big airbrush and at the top of the screen reduce the flow to 10%. I start with the 300-pixel airbrush and work my way down as needed. Use black to define the ocean and white to define the land. However, this has no effect on the actual apperance of the map. The only way I can do that is to use a normal brush on the Base layer. If I do make the changes on the Base layer then I end up with something resembling a continent as shown in your tutorial.

5. I can then follow your instructions all the way to: Adding Colour to the Land. Photoshop 7 doesn't have anything like your describing. Is there a work around for this that you know of?

6. Hmm. Me thinks it might be easier to purchase a copy a newer version of Photoshop.

Thanks again for all your help.

Dal.

[Ascension]

You're using the wrong brush tip...I had someone else recently with this problem and it took us us hours to figure out the problem on AIM. What he was doing was using the 1-pixel brush tip, then setting the size at 300, and hitting the airbrush icon. This does not work so make sure that you are using the Airbrush soft round 300. It is a default brush tip, so scroll down the list.

As far as adding color to the land, it is a layer style of Gradient overlay...it's there, just click that lil funky cursive F at the bottom of the layer stack. The gradient is not a default so you have to make it by hand, that's why I put the color values in the tut. If gradient ends up too dark for you then add in a layer style of Color overlay of white and set it's blend mode to soft light or overlay.

[Tyr]

Step 21 is where I seem to get really lost. No colours add at all. How do you even get into selecting colours with hex codes? I just have to use the standard sliders all the time.
Think I should try and figure out less complex photoshop stuff before this.