Solatus and her Territories
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I really love this style. Your mountains are beautiful, and I especially adore that gorgeous compass rose. The colors are maybe a tad too mellow for my taste, but I'm usually a sucker for super dark themes, so feel free to pay me no mind in this matter
As for the text colorization, the map is honestly a bit too slow in resolution for me to comment on it, as I can't really make out the smaller labels. The thing I do like, is how you have the gentle U-curves on some of the labels when called for, but you aren't curving labels when you don't need to. Some people seem to feel obligated to curve every single label if they have to do it once, and it often looks a bit restless to my eye. Here you have a nice balance of straight lines and curves. Good call!
But in general, I don't think there is really any one advice that works every time on that matter - every map is different, and what looks good on one might look terrible on another.
My own basic rules for labels usually are that
1) in surprisingly many instances white/some other light color works better than black/dark text,
and 2) usually my preferred colors will not be black or white, but something that sits within the color theme of the map itself. Very dark red text on brown land, a light blue on top of a deep blue ocean, that kind of thing. (the Color Overlay Layer effect in PS is a godsend, because it makes you able to make adjustments to the shade very easily. The current CC version even lets you stack multiple Overlays on top of each other, so it's easy to compare different colors)
I want my labels to look like they are part of the map, not just something that sits on top of it, if that makes any sense.
Usually I prefer soft, subtle Outer Glows rather than large and thick ones. Stroke and Drop Shadows are something a lot of people use, but I practically never do. Even when I want a dark shade to make a light label pop, I'll use Outer Glow rather than a Drop Shadow. It's just more easily adjusted, IMO.
One useful trick I've learned, if you are using PS, is that you can add your labels into one Layer Folder, give that folder the Layer Style you want, AND then add that folder into another folder, giving you the ability to add yet another Layer Style on top of the ones you already have in place. This is particularly useful if you have a thin Outer Glow on the labels just to make them stand out more (like the white you seem to have in place here), then you can use the second style to give an additonal, softer Glow outside of that, in the shade of the map terrain beneath the label. Very easy and hassle-free way of making the lineart beneath the text look a bit more faded without having to hide the actual linework.
That's just some general ideas about labels on the top of my head. I don't know if any of this will be useful to you (do you even use PS?), but at least something to think about.
Once more, a beautiful little map, I'm really enjoying seeing the work you've posted so far. Nice to have a new-ish member becoming more active on the Guild, always room for new talent!I can't rep you right now, but would if I could.
Originally Posted by MistyBeee
