First Map, Advice Re: Colouring

[Simon Thompson]

Hi

I've been working on producing a world map in Photoshop using Tear's Saderan tutorial.

It's all looking good (aside from a few artifacts in the rivers), at least to my untrained eye, but I'm struggling as soon as I start putting vegetation, tree colouring on it. I've used Tear's methods and putting a gradient color layer on, but I'm not happy with either really.

I've attached the map here, with a little tree colouring on the tip of the northern continent in place. I'd really appreciate some advice on how to improve on this - I'm using a splatter brush and just a couple of green colours.

Thanks!

Test Map 2.jpg

[Veldehar]

Been a while since I looked at that tut, but my general method for well everything in photoshop is to just keep tinkering with brushes and colors and layers until it all looks good and I can't remember how to replicate the effect the next time I try it, LOL. In general my vegetation tends to b done with patterns (impressionist and non-impressionist often overlapping), soft round pressure brush with about 50% flow, with some bevel and texture effects. I tinkered with splatter brush but never really got into it. Another possible way to tinker with the color is to do a color overlay effect, that can help remedy a questionable color. So many toys in PS.

Also remember that sometimes, like myself grumbling at my first layer of mountains, that everything doesn't always look right until its further along.

[Midgardsormr]

I like the texture of it. I think the color is just a tiny bit too blue, and maybe just a little too saturated. Before you start changing the color, though, try stepping through all of the blending modes and/or adjusting the opacity of the trees layer. Just pulling some color from underneath might be all you need to get it to integrate really well.

Whichever way you go, though, I'll bet that the change you need is very small—it looks almost right, but just a little bit off.

[Simon Thompson]

Thanks guys. It seems just playing around with brushes, layers, etc is the way to go.

I did some more work. This time I used a color gradient layer, and then added bespoke colours using different size airbushes. Reducing the opacity of that layer also improved things. I'm a lot happier with the map now, although the vegetation I put in along some of the rivers flowing through arid lands on the southern continent still isn't looking quite right yet. I need to sort it out somehow.

Attachment 45308

My next major challenge is finding a good thread about labelling my map in Photoshop...