A Love Letter to My New Tablet

[su_liam]

Here's a little experiment I did with the tablet I got for my birthday.

I also tested some new ideas I had for using textured bevel and emboss layers. Well the ideas were new to me anyway.

I would post the actual psd, but it's hugenormous and not really worth the download time.

[RPMiller]

As a tablet user myself, I'll say welcome to a whole new better way of doing things. Since I've been using my tablet I have no idea how I got by so long without one.

Perhaps you could post a screen cap of your layers and blend options?

[su_liam]

Took me awhile to set this up. I wanted to try to recreate the effect, so I'd have some idea what I did ;-)

First, I created a bottom layer, 'green', with clouds filter in green and kind of a golden yellowish color. I added about 2% monochromatic gaussian noise to that.

On top of that I added a 'texture' layer. This was basically drawn in in low opacity green. The layer used bevel and emboss with contour and texture.

Next, I added a 'rivers' layer. This was a little more complex. I drew in my rivers on an alpha channel. I used the channel as a selection and ran the clouds filter with a couple shades of blue for the river. This made for a more interesting look than drawing blue lines. I then applied an outer bevel to the river layer. Direction 'down.' After playing around a bit, I also added a satin effect to the layer. That seemed to tone down the color pleasantly. meh...

Finally, I drew in mountains in kind of a golden brown color on a layer called, 'mountains'. I'm so clever with those names heehee Anyway... I used about the same layer effects settings that I did on the 'texture' layer. Inner bevel, smooth, upward, I created a kind of peaky, downward concave contour(on the 'texture' layer, I think, I used a simple linear contour for a more subtle effect).

[su_liam]

More captures here. I also added a cap showing the layers and the actual final image which I neglected to put up before. I think this one is better than my previous. By the way, how do I save brush settings in PS7?

If there is any interest I can put up the psd.

[RPMiller]

It's been a while, but I believe you can save the brushes from Edit-->Define Brush Preset...

[su_liam]

Well, here's a quickie. I decided to add some towns and labeling text. I think I need to work on my symbols.

Oh yeah, I found a 'New Brush' item in the menu associated with the Brushes tab. That did the trick.

[Qin]

Quick Question, im looking buy a tablet. What kind should i get?
Is there anything that i should Know before i buy one?

[RPMiller]

You may want to read through this thread.

http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=552

[pyrandon]

Su_liam: thakns so much for that! Wonderfully, wonderfully helpful! That's just great of you to post that!

[su_liam]

Thank you for the kind words Pyrandon. I owe so much to this little group and to the guy at zombienirvana.com that it's good to feel as if I might be giving a tiny measure back.

I'm really liking the ability to quickly and easily change the landforms simply by changing the pattern in the texture part of the bevel and emboss effect.

Doing it again, I'd probably do the mountains as a selection mask like I did the river, so I could apply a subtle cloud shading with a couple shades of gold or brown or greyish. That would also increase my ability to go back and recolor parts. I could see a virtuoso photoshop artist(not me) doing almost all painting in grayscale in alpha channels.

This has kind of gotten away from my wacom tablet(which I still love), but many of those little squiggles I made would have been a whole lot more difficult without benefit of that pressure sensitive stylus.

I've been trying to get a better feel for my stylus by using it for a lot of my computer work, instead of the mouse. I've gotten to where I can successfully click without dragging most of the time, and my pointer pretty reliably goes where I expect it to when I put stylus to pad. It's still a little inconvenient and without a scroll wheel it will never replace my mouse, but I am getting the feel for a new tool. My wife is a pro with the pressure sensitivity, I think her calligraphy experience tells.