# Mapping Resources > Tutorials/How-To >  [Award Winner] Antique-style maps in Photoshop

## Ascension

This is the map I made for the tutorial that is about to follow.  It's not perfect and is designed to help folks get their feet wet with the antique style.  There are many ways of doing it, this is just the way I have done it.  There are also many options to experiment with along the way and I could not possibly cover all of those options...I leave that to you all  :Smile:   This style is fairly easy to set up and once you have the basics of it down then you should be able to expand upon it and create your own style and process variants.  As always, questions, comments, etc. are welcome.

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## Ascension

1.	This is my first attempt at the antique style so it may grow and change in time.  This is in Photoshop so Im not sure if the details of the techniques translate to other programs but it should be fairly easy to make whatever changes as these techniques and tools are pretty standard.

2.	First off, lets set up the document:  2000 X 2000 at 300 ppi, rgb mode, 8 bit.  Set colors to black and white.  Filter > Render > Clouds ((pic antique 1)).  Copy this layer.  Create a new blank layer.  Edit > Fill = 50% gray.  On the layers palette, set the mode to Hard Mix, this gives us a black and white interpretation of the underlying clouds without the grays ((pic antique 2)).  Rename this layer to land  to do this, on the layers palette, double-click on the layer name itself.  Click on the background copy layer.  Grab a big airbrush, set the flow to 10%, and use black to fill in the ocean and white for the land.  Our landmasses should be white and the ocean should be black ((pic antique 3)).  When happy, link with the land layer, click on the land layer, merge down (ctrl-e).  Make sure that black is the foreground color then Select > Color Range > use black with a fuzziness of anything.  Hit the Delete key then deselect (ctrl-d).  Click on the Background layer and create a new layer, rename it to ocean and then Edit > Fill = 50% gray.  Click back on the land layer.  Add a layer style of Strokeset the size at 2, color is black, and position is inside.  We now have our landmass done, pretty easy too ((pic antique 4)).  One thing to keep in mind is that when doing this style of map it is important to have a good deal of empty space in one or two corners.  This will allow us to have some space to put in the title graphics, compass, scale, clipart, etc.

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## Ascension

3.	This part is a little tedious but necessaryrivers (ugh).  On the layers palette ctrl-click on the land layer.  Create a new layer and rename it to rivers.  Make sure you have the pencil tool and not the brush tool and grab the Hard square 2 pixels tip.  On the Brushes palette, click on Brush tip shape and set the spacing to 1%.  With black draw a bunch of squiggles starting in the ocean and going inlandsince we have a selection of our land layer the lines will only be drawn on the land and not the ocean.  Change over to a 1-pixel tip for minor rivers and dont forget to put in forks and branches in the rivers ((pic antique 5)).  By defining our rivers first we can use the open space left over for the mountains, swamps, deserts, etc.

4.	Mountains are a two-step process.  Create a new layer and rename it to mountains 1.  Still using the pencil grab a big tip, Im going with the default Soft round 27-pixels.  Check your spacing on the tip and set it to 1% if you need to.  Draw in some basic lines, not shapes ((pic antique 6)).  Create a new layer and rename it to mountains 2.  Change from the pencil to a brush and use the default Hard round 3-pixels and set the flow at 100%.  Zoom in to 100%.  Now add a bunch of cilia (hair) around the outside of the mountain lineit should look like a paramecium ((pic antique 7)).  When done, hide the mountains 1 layer and take the 2 off of the other mountains layer.  Now our basic topography is done.  A more modern take on this approach is to taper the lines.  To do this, click on the Brushes tab then click on Shape Dynamics.  Underneath the Size Jitter is a box that will probably say Pen pressurechange this to Fade and set the amount of how much you want the taper to be.

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## Ascension

5.	Click on the “Background” layer and create a new layer, rename it to “white” and fill it with white. Click on the “ocean” layer and add a layer style of Gradient overlay…use a very light teal-blue to a very light pink.  My colors are: blue = BEDCE6 (rgb 190, 220, 230) and pink = F5D7D7 (rgb 245, 215, 215).  Drop the opacity of the gradient to 50% ((pic antique 8 )).  Copy the “white” layer and rename it to “noise”.  Next, move it to the top of the layers palette.  Filter > Noise > Add noise = 50% and make sure that monochromatic is unchecked (this gives colors).  Set the layer’s mode to overlay.  Create a new layer and rename it to “aging”.  Change the foreground color to something tan with a bit of red in it…I used 84745E (rgb 132, 116, 94).  Now change the layer’s opacity to 15%.  Filter > Texture > Texturizer = use canvas as the texture, set the scaling at 50%, the relief at 5, and the light is at the top (this puts the emphasis on the horizontal lines whereas top left gives us something more 3d than what we want) ((pic antique 9)).

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## Ascension

6.	Now we need to put in the rings around the landmasses so reset the colors to black and white.  Click on the land layer and create a new layer.  On the layers palette ctrl-click on the land layerthis loads this layers selection.  Select > Modify > Expand = 1.  Fill with white and deselect.  On the layers palette, change the fill to 0%.  Add a layer style of stroke, 1-pixel, black, outside.  On the layers palette, right click on this layer and choose Copy layer style.  Create a new layer and ctrl-click on Layer 1, Select > Modify > Expand = 2.  Fill with white and deselect.  On the layers palette, right click on this layer (it should be Layer 2) and choose Paste layer style.  Continue doing this until you have 10 layers/rings, expanding the selection by 3, then 4, then 5, etc.  Once you have 10 rings, link the layers in the layer paletteyou do this by clicking the empty box between the eye and the layer preview pic.  Merge these layers together (ctrl-e).  Rename the resulting layer to rings.  Filter > Blur > Gaussian blur = 0.3.  Click on the rivers layer and hit ctrl-f (this applies the last used filter to this layerin this case the blur).  Move the noise layer underneath the land layer.  Move the rings layer underneath the land layer ((pic antique 10)).  Copy the rings layer if your rings look too light.

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## Ascension

7.	Lets tweak the aging a little bit so click on the aging layer and create a new layer.  Rename it to brown and fill with the brown we used earlier (84745E).  Ctrl-click on the land layer in the layers palette.  Select > Modify > Expand = 100.  Expand 2 more times.  Select > Feather = 100.  Hit the delete key 5 times and deselect.  Change the layers mode to Color burn.

8.	Lets put in the countries.  Click on the land layer and create a new layer.  Use whatever size pencil you want and draw in the first countrydraw out into the ocean as well then fill the whole shape ((pic antique 12)).  Draw each new country on its own layer and each in a different color ((pic antique 13)).  Once you have all of your countries in place, ctrl-click on the land layer and Select > Inverse.  Hit the delete key on each country layer.  This deletes the fill out in the ocean.  When done, deselect.  Now to prevent our countries from overlapping, we will do something similar for each country.  Click on your first country (in the layers palette).  Ctrl-click on this layer then click on the layer of a country that touches this first country.  Hit the delete key and do the same for any other country that touches this first one.  Continue this process on down the line for all subsequent countries ((pic antique 14)).  Next, for each country change the layers fill to 0%.    Click back on the first country layer.  Add a layer style of Inner glowuse red, opacity is 75%, size is 10.  You can use as many different colors for the countries as you like but try to use at least 3, I have used 8red, orange, yellow, brown, green, blue, purple, and gray.  Next, each country will get a layer style of Pattern overlay.  The pattern I use is one of diagonal lines set to multiply with an opacity of 35%.  You can use whatever pattern you choose as long as it is gray-scale.  If you happen to have some pattern that you would rather use then skip ahead to the next step.  I have also flipped the pattern so that the lines go a different way in order to help accentuate each country from another.  Lastly, each country gets a layer style of Color overlay that matches the color of the inner glow set to overlay at 67% opacitythus I have 8 different color overlays.  The pattern overlay in multiply mode ensures that the white lines of the pattern will be invisible and the color overlay in overlay mode combines with the black lines of the pattern to produce a colored line pattern.  Lastly, turn down the opacity of each countrys layer to 50% ((pic antique 15)).

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## Ascension

9.	Our layers palette is getting quite long so lets fix that.  Click on the land layer.  At the bottom of the layers palette you will see an icon that looks like a little folderclick that.  This inserts a folder into our layers palette and you can name it whatever you likeI named mine main map.  Drag each of the layers that are below this folder onto the folder name itself (you will see a brown glow around the name of the folder).  Once done, click on the little triangle to the left to collapse the view.  Click on the topmost country layer and repeat this process.  You should have 4 layers above that are not in folders; rivers, mountains, aging, and brown.

10.	Lets add some cities now.  Change back to the pencil and grab the Hard round 5-pixels tip.  Click on the mountains layer and create a new layer, rename it to cities.  Put a dot wherever you want it.  On the layers palette, right click on this layer and choose Paste layer style (this puts that 1-pixel black stroke around the dot and makes the dot itself invisible).  Since this is supposed to be something more modern we will need lots of cities and townswe do not need to make this a sparsely settled map like we would for something medieval.  Also, what makes this style map seem nice is the sheer amount of text on it, but Ill get to that laterfor now put in lots of dots.  We will only name cities and towns so dont worry about that too muchyet.  I put dots at every river delta, wherever two rivers meet, and then wherever seems kind of empty ((pic antique 16)).   

11.	Now the ultra tedious partnaming all of that stuff.  Cities and towns use Times New Roman but the towns are italicized.  Set the font size to 4pt for cities and 3.5pt for towns.  As a rule of thumb I use 2 towns to 1 city.  Once you have all of the cities and towns named merge them all together and rename this layer to city names.  Change the layers opacity to 75% and add a layer style of outer glow...the color is F5F5F0 (rgb 245, 245, 240), mode is screen, opacity is 75%, spread and size are both 10.  What really makes this style of map cool is the sheer amount of text you can cram into it and still be relatively legible.  So, although it is tedious, try to name as many things as you can, I have not since this is just a tutorial  ((pic antique 17)).

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## Ascension

12.	Lets give our continent a name.  For this well use the font Times New Roman again but in all caps and well adjust it a bit.  First, go ahead and type the name with a font size of 12pt.  Next open up the Character window.  You will see a capital T with an up and down arrow beside it; this is the Verticality scale.  Change it from 100% to 75%.  This squashes our letters a bit and looks cooler.  Next, you will see AV with a left and right arrow underneath of it; this is the Tracking (the space between letters).  Set this number to 900.  Lastly, at the very top of the screen you will see a T with a little hill under it; this is the Warp tool.  Set this style to Arc, Horizontal, and a +10% Bend.  Position the text somewhere near the center of the continent.  Try not to let this text overlap the text for cities and towns but if it does, then click on the city names layer and drag a marquee around the text and move it so that you can read it then deselect.  Apply the same layer style as in step 11.

13.	Oceans are done the same way as in the last step but with a smaller font size and in italicI use an 8pt font.  Also, they are often rotated to fit a coastline.  Bays, coves, and smaller water bodies use upper and lower case letters and smaller font size.  Once you have all of your water bodies named merge them together and apply the same layer style as in step 11 ((pic antique 1 :Cool: ).

14.	Country names are done in Arial, in all caps, with the same vert scale and the tracking varies depending on how wide the country is.  For countries that are tall and skinny you will have to put the text on two lines (make sure you hit the enter key after the first word with no space) and make sure that the text style is centered and not left aligned or right aligned.  Also, change the Leading in the Character window.  It looks like an A on top of another A with a line between them and an up and down arrow beside them.  This changes the amount of space between text lines.  Once this is all done, merge the layers and apply the same layer style as in step 11.

15.	Geologic features, like mountains, deserts, etc. are in italic Arial, in all caps, but set the vert to 120% and the tracking is 0%.  Again, merge the layers and apply the layer style.

16.	Rivers are done in italic Times New Roman with a vert of 125% and 0 tracking (and a small font size).  They are also warped to fit the bends of the river.  This step can take the longest if you have a large amount of rivers.  For this tutorial I am not going to name my rivers as it will take way too long to do so.

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## Ascension

17.	This is looking pretty good so lets get to the finish work.  Click on the brown layer and create a new layer.  Rename this layer to frame.  Zoom in to 1600% so that we can see each pixel and get to know them a little bit  :Smile:   Move the map so that you are looking at the very top left.  Make sure that the ruler is showing and click the Move tool (it looks like a pointer with a plus sign).  Click on the ruler and drag out a guide to the fifteenth pixel from the top.  Do this again but from the left side.  Move the map to the bottom right corner and drag out a guide to the fifteenth pixel from the bottom and one from the right side.  Zoom back out.  Grab the Marquee tool.  Drag out a selection that fills in this marked area.  Fill with black.  View > Clear guides.  Ctrl-click this layer and Select > Modify > Contract = 15.  Hit the delete key and deselect.  Create a new layer, name it anything you want and drag out some more guides.  These guides will be 40 pixels from the edge of the image.  Marquee this area, fill with black, and deselect.  Clear guides.  Ctrl-click this layer, Select > Modify > Contract = 5, hit delete and deselect.  You should now have a thick frame and a thin frame.  Merge down (ctrl-e).  If you have rings or text showing through, then go and erase them.

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## Ascension

18.	Put in your title textI used Times New Roman, 6pt italic and 12pt normal.  The vert was reset to 100%.  We need a scale bar now so grab the default Hard square 10 pixels.  Create a new layer and rename it to scale bar.  Zoom in to 500% or more so that you can see up close.  Click to make a dot (square, whatever).  Move over a bit and put another dot right next to this one but dont overlap the dots and dont leave a space between them.  Put down 3 more dots like this so that we have a black bar that is 10 pixels tall and 50 pixels wide.  Copy this layer and move it to the right so that it abuts the previous black bar.  Put a white color overlay on this layer.  Copy the black bar again and move it to the right of the white bar.  Continue copying and moving these 2 bars until youre happy.  I went with 3 black, 2 white.  When done merge these layers together.  Click on the title text layer and then grab the Move tool.  Drag out a guide (from the left side ruler) to the middle of the title textguides have a snap ability, they snap to either side and the middle as well as top and bottom.  We want this one in the middle.  Click on the scale bar and move it so that it snaps to the middle of the guide.  Move it up and down as you see fit.  When happy, clear the guides.

19.	Now lets put the mile numbers in, use Arial and a small font size (I went with 4pt).  Put each new number (0, 100, 200, etc) on its own layer.  Using the Move tool try to get each number centered above the color stops and make sure that each number touches the scale bar.  When done, link and merge these number layers.  Move this layer up 5 pixels.  Click back on the scale bar layer.  Add a 1-pixel black stroke with a pencil (not a layer style).  Use an eraser and delete the white bars.  This is important because we want our paper to show through and there is no white on our paper.  Put in Scale In Miles and center it (use the guide).  And lastly, add in a secondary frame for the title.

20.	Put in a compass but make sure that it is not too modern or too ancient.  Next, anything that is black and big and above the brown layer needs a bit of a blur.  Merge these layers together and hit ctrl-f to apply the last filter (the gaussian blur).  Move this layer under the aging layer and apply the layer style from step 11.

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## Ascension

21.	Now you might be thinking to yourself, Theres something missing and Ill say Yes, there isbut do you think you can handle it?  Its time for the latitude and longitude lines and it can get a little tricky.  The first thing we are going to do is draw out a 2-pixel black line from the very top to the very bottom (on a new layer).  Next we need some guides placed 200 pixels apart (our image is 2000 pixels wide so every 200 pixels is 10% of the map).  Zoom in to 1600% and put the guides in at 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600, and 1800.  Use the Move tool and place the black line directly in the middle of the first guide.  Copy this layer and move it to the next guide.  Keep going until you get all of the guides covered with a black line.  Merge these layers together.  Copy this layer.  Edit > Transform > Rotate 90CW.  Merge down.  Rename this layer to lat long.  We now have our lat and long lines.  For that extra coolness factor were going to distort these lines.  Click on the Background layer.  Image > Canvas Size = put 1000 in each of the windows (this will add 500 pixels to the top, bottom, left, and right of the whole image).  Click back on the lat long layer.  Filter > Distort > Spherize = 50%.  Now that looks pretty cool.  Click on the Background layer.  Ctrl-click on the aging layer.  Image > Crop.  Now our image is back where it started (2000 X 2000) but we need to erase any lat long lines that go through the frame.  Next, put in the numbers to indicate the degrees of latitude and longitude (use Times New Roman in italic and a small font size).  When that is done, do the blur and apply the layer style from step 11 ((pic antique 19)).  NOTE:  this process works perfect if your continent is on the equator; if your continent is above or below the equator then you will have to add more lines and then move them around after the Spherize is done and possibly Edit > Transform > Scale.

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## Ascension

22.	This is now done.  Now you can start adding your own things to the edges.  I went back and added an outer glow of black to the land layer as well as an inner glow of black.  I did the same for the mountain line (not the little hatch lines, the original fat line layer) but with a smaller size glow radius.  You can use the empty space for doing inset maps of islands or cites or add clipart or whatever.  Just make sure that anything you add is genre appropriate (no spaceships).  When the map is all done, add your favorite torn edges/burnt edges/ripped edges border and add in some distress, folds, scratches, grunge and whatever else.  

Happy mapping to all and to all a good map.

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## Korash

I was thinking of this type of style for my hand drawn map but was worried about the mountains. The way you did them (ridge line and fuzzy worm) is something that I might be able to pull off by hand. I have no prob. (at least not now that I have tried a few tut here) adding the color on the comp, but I wanted the line work for the terrain to be done by hand.

thanks muchly and duly repped and rated.  :Cool: 

:edit: might even have rated it twice  :Wink:

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## Ascension

You'll notice the hair on my worm is rather scram-gravy since I did it with a mouse but I think that's what gives it its charm, dont'cha think?  That part could be done much neater in Illustrator or Inkscape and since that's sort of like speaking Sanskrit to me I chose not to do them that way.  Thanks for the rate and the rep, glad I could help  :Smile:

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## Sigurd

Thanks for the Tutorial.


Appreciate the cohesive thought and hard work.


Sigurd

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## Bohunk

Beautiful map A.  The one thing that bugs me, because I tried doing the exact same thing, is the rings around the landmass.  They get too perfect and in contrast to the mountains you (and I, in my map) created they destroy the hand drawn look to the map.  When I played with this idea in my map I tried everything but drawing the lines myself by hand.  You figure if you smooth each ring it might look better but it doesn't and in the end I dropped the map completely until I had time to draw them by hand.

Great tutorial and great looking map; the comp would allow me to rep ya again!

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## Hoel

So cool. Will definitely try this at home. I've been trying alot of different styles of mountains, but this one looks better than anything i've come up with.

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## Steel General

Excellent as always my friend, I will give this a whirl in the next few days.

PS - I have compiled this into a MS-Word (2003) file and attached it for those who want to download it.

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## jfrazierjr

> Beautiful map A.  The one thing that bugs me, because I tried doing the exact same thing, is the rings around the landmass.  They get too perfect and in contrast to the mountains you (and I, in my map) created they destroy the hand drawn look to the map.  When I played with this idea in my map I tried everything but drawing the lines myself by hand.  You figure if you smooth each ring it might look better but it doesn't and in the end I dropped the map completely until I had time to draw them by hand.


I have not tried it, but if you space the rings out a bit (at least 8-10 pixels from each other or more) you might be able to do a displacement map against each set of rings with a 1-2 px distort to get a slightly more varied line.  Not sure what method A is doing as I have not read the whole thing yet, but if stroking a path, I know GIMP can emulate brush dynamics to vary stroke width during the stroke, so I assume PS can probably do that some to.  That would also help make it look a bit more hand drawn with the varied line sizes.

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## Ascension

Bohunk -- I haven't tried this yet, but I will later today, and I am thinking that since the rings are created via selection then you could feather the selection by 1 pixel or maybe 2 to round off the jaggies in the initial step and then each succeeding ring would just be an expansion of the roundness so no further feathering would be necessary but optional on the other rings.  I'll check it later today.

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## Bohunk

> Bohunk -- I haven't tried this yet, but I will later today, and I am thinking that since the rings are created via selection then you could feather the selection by 1 pixel or maybe 2 to round off the jaggies in the initial step and then each succeeding ring would just be an expansion of the roundness so no further feathering would be necessary but optional on the other rings.  I'll check it later today.


I have tried that and it does work...to a point.  I guess it depends on the style map it is done on.  The map I tried it with had too much of a jagged coastline and the rings closest to the coastline would actually smooth over and actually cross the coastline and islands of its coast.  It is certainly worth a try and I hope you find something that works because it's a wonderfull effect.

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## Ascension

I think I've got a fix, what do you think?  The "feather the selection" just produces a fat line due to blurring/feathering so I went even simpler and created a striped stroke of solid black with varying opacities (see screenshot).

JFJ -- Creating paths from selections then stroking that path is unreliable a lot of the time; it never seems to stay true, it rounds off way too much.  Of course it could be something that I'm missing but the path never has the same detail as the selection (see screenshot).  So I try to avoid paths.

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## jfrazierjr

Have you thought about doing a test with a woodcut effect instead of the rings?   It might be a nice option for this style of map also.

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## Ascension

That's one of those myriad options that are out there for people to experiment with.  I've never tried the effect and I wouldn't want to appear to be hogging all of the cool tutorial ideas  :Smile:

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## jfrazierjr

> That's one of those myriad options that are out there for people to experiment with.  I've never tried the effect and I wouldn't want to appear to be hogging all of the cool tutorial ideas



Hog! Hog!  you can always post up a link to the other tutorial and offer it as a separate "or you could do this instead" type supplement.

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## Ascension

Ok, so I did up a lil woodcut effect.  It's not perfect, but it looks okay.

How I did it:
1.  Copy the "land" layer, remove all layer styles, set the layer's fill to 0% (on the layers palette) and rename it to "wood effect".  
2.  Add a layer style of stroke,  set the size to 50, outside, and where it says "Fill Type" choose "pattern".  Use a black and white stripe pattern (mine is a 6x1 pixel pattern; 3b & 3w).
3.  Create a new layer and link it to this layer, move the new layer under the "wood effect" layer.  Click on the "wood effect" layer and merge down (ctrl-e).  This removes the layer style and rasterizes the layer.  
4.  Filter > Distort > Ripple = size is 50 and the type is small.  Now our stripes have a little wave.
5.  Ctrl-click on the "land" layer (in the layers palette).  Select > Modify > Expand = 25.  Select > Feather = 25.  Select > Inverse.  Hit the Delete key 2 or 3 times then deselect.
6.  Add a layer style color overlay of something brown (I chose 402010, rgb 64, 32, 16).  Set the mode to overlay.
7.  On the layers palette, change the fill to 67% to make the black less prevalent in favor of the brown.

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## jfrazierjr

ooooo... dats purdy!

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## Steel General

Yeah I think I actually like the wood cut better than the lines.

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## Sagenlicht

I just stumbled across this tutorial  :Smile: 

Nice work Ascension  :Smile: 

Here's a quick convert of SG'S doc to pdf for easier handling  :Smile: 

SG - if you cant create pdf's yourself take a look at this.

PDFCreator is free (its open source), easy to use and fast. I use it myself when I am on my windows box. Once installed you can create pdf's out of any application. Just go to print and select the pdf creator printer.

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## jfrazierjr

> I just stumbled across this tutorial 
> 
> Nice work Ascension 
> 
> Here's a quick convert of SG'S doc to pdf for easier handling 
> 
> SG - if you cant create pdf's yourself take a look at this.
> 
> PDFCreator is free (its open source), easy to use and fast. I use it myself when I am on my windows box. Once installed you can create pdf's out of any application. Just go to print and select the pdf creator printer.


Sagenlicht, does it have the ability to append to an existing file?   I have had need to do that and only one of the three I have tried actually does that.   I THINK, its PrimoPDF, but not 100% sure...

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## torstan

Excellent tutorial Ascension. As soon as I get my laptop back I'll have to have a shot at this in Gimp. The pattern overlay thing is probably the main thing that will need altered - but that's just a matter of creating a layer, filling it with a pattern and setting it to multiply. Thanks also for the woodcut stuff, I've always meant to figure out how to do that in Gimp hand have yet to get a satisfactory result.

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## Sagenlicht

> Sagenlicht, does it have the ability to append to an existing file?   I have had need to do that and only one of the three I have tried actually does that.   I THINK, its PrimoPDF, but not 100% sure...


I'll quote their feature list:

PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application.

Key Features:

    * Create PDFs from any program that is able to print
    * Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc.
    * Send generated files via eMail
    * Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
    * AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
*    * Merge multiple files into one PDF*
    * Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
    * Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
    * And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.

I never tried this though, cause I didnt need it so far  :Smile: 

EDIT: I guess pdfcreator uses a queue for this... you will have to reprint your existing pdf with pdfcreator adding it to its queue then print your new file (whatever format, could be doc etc), adding it as well to the queue and then choose to combine your queue. Reads much more complex that it is actually  :Smile: . Basically hit print twice then say merge or whatever pdfcreator will call it  :Smile: 

EDIT2: You can actually use inkscape for this as well I assume, if you have ghostscript installed you can simply import any pdf into inkscape. The Inkscape pdf import is pretty much amazing.

EDIT3: Link to ghostscript - choose the windows installer - the 3rd one (I assume you use windows JF  :Smile:  )

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## Steel General

@Sagenlicht - I can create them if I'm at work, but I don't have the software to do it at home.

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## Sagenlicht

Give pdfcreator a try SG, its just a small download and easy to setup/use  :Smile:

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## Ascension

Sage, Tor...thanks guys.  Just trying to help  :Smile:

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## Notsonoble

Quick Silly question... does anybody know how to get the sphereize effect with GIMP?

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## Notsonoble

Nevermind Apply Lens is almost the same effect... and should be usable with sufficient tweaking... I'll trying and figure it out...

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## Ascension

If you do find the crossover trick, feel free to post up a tut for doing this in Gimp...no need to credit me as I take no credit for teaching.  That may have came out weird but you get the idea...it's all good.

----------


## Sagenlicht

> Quick Silly question... does anybody know how to get the sphereize effect with GIMP?


Filters -> Map -> Map to object (choose sphere). Apply lens is easier to handle though, so if you do not need the extra parameter from map to object just stick with apply lens.

One more thingie maybe. If you use Apply Lens or Map to Object (Sphere) results are better if you reduce your final spehre by about 50%. Which means you should start with twice the size you wanna have in the end.

----------


## Vandy

Hello, Ascension and All.

First of all, thank you for this wonderful tutorial.  I look forward to using it it create an antique-style map.

Second, thanks to Steel General for creating the Word document of the tutorial.  I appreciate your efforts in this regard.

I've created a PDF document of this tutorial (link below) and have included in it the discusion concerning Ocean Rings as well as the discussion cocerning Woodcut Ocean Rings.

I hope you'll enjoy the document.

Regards,

Gary

----------


## Steel General

Thanks Vandy, meant to do that myself and forgot all about it.

----------


## Ascension

Thanks to both of you  :Smile:

----------


## Eagleyes

Hi, I'm new to photoshop but I loved your tutorial!! I am currently at the 21 step. I would like to know how can I make this scoll style background and this burned edges for my map like the first image you posted, can you teach me or show me a thread that theaches how to do this?

My map is like this:

----------


## ravells

I've just started this tutorial and the coast creation method is the best I've ever seen in photoshop - even easier than RobA's threshold technique. It's gold for that alone!!!

Eagleyes, here is a parchment tutorial: The advanced search tool is your friend!

Good luck with the parchment style!

----------


## Ascension

Oh man, I'm so sorry that I didn't get back to you sooner Eagleyes.  I've been setting up a new pc and totally forgot.  The link by Ravs is a really good tut; thanks, man.  What I did was to just add an overlay of a paper texture then give it a layer style of inner glow.  I think it's in the tut later on but in case it's not the inner glow is a black set to color burn.  That's a nice compass you have there.

----------


## m-boy

Thanks a lot, Ascension  :Exclamation: 

I just have to say that this is the best tutorial I've seen in a while ^_^
and the results are really professional looking - after creating such a map it's quite a pleasure to elaborate on the story for an unique RPG experience - it helps a lot to feel the proper atmosphere for the world setting that one's aiming for  :Cool: 

Below I'm posting my result from following the tutorial steps, I didn't follow them very strictly and I skipped a few steps so I can spend more time on others, as I was aiming on a single island for a pirate adventure (rather than a whole continent with a number of countries) 

Also worth mentioning is that the tutorial consists of many easy to follow steps and is very detailed making it so versatile that with it one can build anything he wishes for, even maps based on real world places, as I did: a real map of Jamaica and Port Royal was used as a reference (attached here too), it's very low resolution... that doesn't matter, though - resizing it and setting the opacity low was very helpful for step 4 (shaping the landmass); I just had to use very small brush for fine-tuning the contour where necessary

Well, sorry for this long post but I'm really happy with the things I learned from this tutorial and wanted to share the result
credits for the map go to the entire Cartographer's Guild as both the knowledge and the parchment texture used for the final touches were gained thru these forums

Btw, nice map, Eagleyes, you give me some good ideas for improving future maps (your mountains are very cool ^^)

_Notes about the attachments:_
1. Jamaica(wOpt).png => Final result! The PNG is optimized to be a small size (meaning there are less colours than supposed >.< so some of the effects look dull), if someone is interested I can post bigger versions (unoptimized is ~5 mb), or psd files; 
2. Jamaica+Port Royal.jpg => as you see this map's resolution (island area) is just 300x150, that's the map I used as a reference in Photoshop; I now need a way to do the smaller Port Royal area
3. Jm-map.png => Modern map of Jamaica (from wikipedia), I'm putting it just for comparison with the next map, I saw it by the time I was doing the scale bar as I went to wikipedia to check the size of the island (it's 150 miles)
4. Jamaica-5.jpg => earlier version, without the old-paper-ish look, it really looks like a lot better version than the one in wikipedia ^^ (if you don't count some rivers and that Chi Gow village I added... and the mountains that are probably not there IRL lol)

----------


## Ascension

Good stuff, dude; I like very much.  I'm glad that you liked it and I can see, also, that you will go very far with your tweaks and style.

----------


## Eagleyes

This is my finished map. First map I've ever made!!

----------


## Steel General

Nice! I like the way you 'grunged' it up.

----------


## Ascension

You have learned much, young grasshopper...take the base and put your own style on it.  Good job.

----------


## m-boy

Thanks for the comment, Ascension ^^
"tweaks and style" there is just me playing around with filters and blending modes - so I wouldn't call it style yet as I didn't even remember all the tweaks I did >.>

@Eagleyes: maybe blurring the mountains layer a bit would blend it more with the rest of the map; also branching the rivers could probably make them more interesting (Step 7 from the Tutorial, where it explicitly tells to "not forget to put in forks and branches" - here's a real-world example for some ideas); I hope you'll find the suggestions helpful ^^

I'll try making another map using this Tutorial in a few days and post it too, it's a great pleasure working with it  :Cool:

----------


## TheMeanestGuest

Hey Ascension, I decided to use your technique but was sort of confused by step 7. It said to use a hard square pencil, but I don't have hard square, is there another pencil type that would suffice? 

Also just thought I'd include where I'm at now. I decided to use my own mountains (since I went on to start them since the rivers flumoxed me), and we'll see how it turns out.

----------


## Ascension

The hard squares are in the Preset folder, they don't come loaded straight out of the box but they're there if you need them.  To load them them, use the preset manager, the brush menu is the default that pops up.  On the right side you'll see a button for "load brushes" or "add" or something like that.  This will pop open a window for you to go browsing so navigate to the Photoshop folder, then presets, then brushes, then load up those thingies.  There should also be an additional folder in the brushes folder called "Photoshop Only" and there are more brushes in there.  

If you don't want to do that or get lost trying, then use a hard round  :Smile:

----------


## m-boy

well, here is my next mapping attempt (coming along with a question)

but first about the map:
it's representing an all made-up world (all names included are generated with this here fantasy name generator

I'm not that happy with the final result (as much as with the previous one) but the time I spent working on it was very effective cause I was able to try lots of things ^^ this map has the wood effect rather than rings 
so I upload three versions: 1 clean, 1 printed on old paper (real texture, stretched) and one on "cloth" material (this one all made by me) 

and here comes my question:
Ascension, how did you get this contour effect between the different countries (pic 15 and onwards in the tutorial)? I don't think it's covered. And it didn't quite happen for me, if it's generated by the Inner Glow layer style (maybe I'm missing something) /btw I'll be trying your colored map tutorials next, so I'll most likely annoy you even more than this question does in the future .. hope you don't mind  :Embarassed:

----------


## Ascension

Yep, it's just an inner glow, same color as the country but not as transparent.  Maybe increase the size of your glow to make it more pronounced or change the blend mode to multiply...I dunno.  Certainly don't mind answering questions, or trying to that is  :Smile:   These look real nice, might not even need me anymore...how they grow up so fast  :Very Happy:

----------


## Eagleyes

I really liked your clean map, the wood effect is a good alternative and I loved the aztec style borders!

----------


## m-boy

thanks for your comments! 
actually the map was having rings at the start. I even tried to break their regularity and hard corners by editing the layers for each of the rings but while zoomed in I messed them up a lot at one moment... and decided to try the wood effect and can now say that I like it much more than the rings

attached here is a piece of the map with modified rings (not the messed up part, of course xD)

----------


## Ascension

That looks real good.  I can honestly say that you do it better.

----------


## Ramah

M-Boy I love your "Final printed" image that you posted, the one on old paper, really wonderful. If I had a single nitpick, it's that your grid lines have an outer glow to them that erases parts of the labels, although I guess you wanted this?

----------


## ravells

Very nice indeed, m-boy. I really like the subtle hatching.

----------


## m-boy

Thank you guys, for all the positive comments!

Modifying the rings really improves the map but the way I did it was a veeery slow (editing 10 layers one by one is simply too much) and stressful (the moment I realized I had to fix the rings on like a quarter of the map was awful) process. Maybe for a smaller map (or at least, one continent only) that would be quite useable, though. 

Ramah, I cannot take much credit for the "Final printed" looks as I used the paper from a real old map for it and just pasted my map over (after cloning away the thing that was originally showing). 
Regarding the lines and their outer glow, though, you give me a nice idea. If I put them below all the labels' layers then the labels would be wholly visible and erase a bit from the grid lines (cause they have outer glow, too) but that won't be a problem. Since because the lines are straight, our eyes would see them straight even if they have some tiny breaks. And the outer glow is there (as Ascension mentioned in the Tutorial) because in general it's a characteristic of the antique maps to have many labels and details that are easily readable.

----------


## Stargazer

I am currently working on a map of my own based on this awesome tutorial.

Any comments?

----------


## Ascension

I think you did a great job with it  :Smile:

----------


## Stargazer

Thanks a lot! But I couldn't have done it without your tutorial. I am a total newbie when it comes to mapmaking with Photoshop. This is actually the first map I did in PS.  :Smile:

----------


## Ascension

Then I'm hoping that we see more  :Smile:

----------


## Alecthar

Alright, I've been trying (with mixed success) to work this map out in GIMP.  The countries don't look right, but I'm working on it.

I don't know of a "Hard Edge" type dealie to separate solid noise into pure white and black, so I relied on RobA's Land/Noise/Clip sandwiching technique to take the landmass I had and random it up a bit.  Then I used another of his techniques (well, I read about it in his guide first) and did 2 Map -> Displace for -20 X/ 20 Y and 20 X/ -20 Y respectively.  I used the Noise layer I'd made earlier as the map for it.  The landmass itself came out beautifully, I think.  To edge the landmass with black I just Alpha to Selection-ed the land, made a new layer, grew the selection by a few pixels and bucketed the area black.  Then I just merged the white mass onto the black layer and voila, black edging, no fuss no muss.  The rivers and mountains can be done utterly without incident, though I think my squiggly lines may need some work in the future.

The countries were also similar, until I needed to edge them.  I did something similar to the edge work on the landmass.  I made the layer for coloring the countries, used Alpha to Selection to do my color fill, then copied the layer.  I then went back and shrunk the original country alpha selections by 5 (too much, I think, gonna work on that) and deleted the inside of the countries on the copied layer.

I plan to keep on plugging away at this, so I should be back, here's a snapshot of the map so far, and my .xcf if you're interested.  If you're wondering "why did he put the rivers/mountains directly on the land layer?" the only answer I have is that it's late here, and I'm only seldom fully competent with anything.  I was actually completely certain I _had_ made separate layers until I tried to use the eraser.  I'll probably fix that soon, but right now I'm just trying to post this.

----------


## Ascension

When you get it done, you should do up a Gimp crossover for those who use it.  You might even get your own tut award for it  :Smile:

----------


## Alecthar

> When you get it done, you should do up a Gimp crossover for those who use it.  You might even get your own tut award for it


That's the plan.  Love the map, by the way, I'm just having some trouble.  It's been years since I've used Photoshop, and I'm really just getting started with GIMP still.  Because I've so little experience with Photoshop, I sometimes have little idea what effect a particular instruction gives you, so I'm still trying to figure out what I should be trying to replicate.  Hopefully one of the GIMP wizards around here will have an idea.

With that said, I stopped torturing myself around 2 AM this morning and decided to try something a bit different.  I decided to go with a parchment and ink look I thought I could handle, but naturally I needed to make parchment first, and I had no idea how.  Fortunately the tutorial that's linked to via a thread here translated very well into GIMP, you can see my efforts so far below.  I decided to do my mountains first as a guide for the directions my rivers should take.

----------


## Leonal

Nice work on the parchment!
I've been trying the same tutorial in GIMP myself, but got stuck with the edges. Any tips on how you made yours?^^

----------


## Alecthar

> Nice work on the parchment!
> I've been trying the same tutorial in GIMP myself, but got stuck with the edges. Any tips on how you made yours?^^


Make a Cloud Noise layer of maximum detail and size (15 detail, 16 X & Y).  Turn off visibility for it, you don't need to see it.  On your parchment/parchment's layer mask, do a Filter -> Map -> Displacement for -20 X and 20 Y, with the Cloud Noise layer you just made selected for both.  Go back and do it again with 20 X and -20 Y, this should give you torn looking, irregular edges.  There might be a couple of little bits and pieces that aren't actually attached to the main body of the parchment, you can clean that up by showing the layer mask and then using a black pencil to knock out the stray white bits.

Edit:  I finished the parchment map, it borrows a number of techniques from both you and RobA.  Seeing as I posted my first progress here, I thought I'd let people know how it turned out.  It still needs cities, and names for terrain features, but right now it really just needed to have the country names so it could go on the cover of a little .pdf booklet I'm making for an RL campaign.

Also, I've liked the look of the map now that I'm playing with layer modes a bit.  I think I'll be able to come remarkably close to the look of this photoshop version with some time and effort.  I'm restarting on a new map to alleviate my frustrations with being dumb and forgetting to put the mountains and whatnot on their own layers.

Further bulletins as events require.

----------


## AslanC

Sorry to necro this thread, but...

I am trying to get the wood cut effect and I don't think it is working at all.  :Frown: 

I have created a 6x1 3b 3w pattern and followed the instructions, and ever time it turns out like this.

The ripple never looks wavy and the effect just looks wrong.

Can someone help me pretty please and tell me what I am doing wrong?

----------


## Ascension

Are you using ripple or ocean ripple?  Ocean ripple gives a much different effect, more like beveled round-corner squares (if you've ever watched the series "20th Century Battlefields" on the Military Channel they do their oceans with an ocean ripple effect).  Ripple will produce waves and then there's also the wave filter that has about a million different possible outcomes what with all of its sliders and number-input boxes.

----------


## AslanC

Am using Ripple, not Ocean Ripple.

Should I use Ocean Ripple instead?

----------


## Ascension

No.  I've no idea what's going on here.

----------


## AslanC

Could it be the pattern I am using?

It is 6 tall and 1 wide, with black and white alternating... is that maybe not the right way to do that pattern?

----------


## Ascension

I was just checking that, it seems fine.  Shoot me a screenie showing your ripple window open so that I can see the settings.

----------


## AslanC

Here ya go.

Hope this can be figured out  :Smile:

----------


## Ascension

Got it, change the amount from 50% to 100% and then try medium and large ripples to see what you prefer.

----------


## AslanC

Well that didn't work either.

Attache are the large and medium.

I am at a loss here.  :Frown:

----------


## Ascension

That doesn't look right at all, from the wave shape it looks like the wave filter (running this on my PS as we go along here) and I have no idea what's going on with the colored noise appearing.  I guess, go back to the pattern and increase the size of it 200% or make a 12x1 pattern.

----------


## AslanC

Nope that didn't work either...

Okay maybe this is basic PS 101 and I am a dolt, but I may have made the pattern wrong (since it wasn't available in my presets).

I made an image 1wide x 6tall (300 dpi/8 bit)and alternated black and white then used the "Define Pattern" to save it.

Was that my mistake?

----------


## Ascension

Nope, that's exactly what you do.  Maybe Adobe changed the way that the filter works after my version (CS).  Try a 12x1 pattern to get wider lines and see what happens.

----------


## Coyotemax

For my woodcut efftect, the pattern is 3 px high, 1 plack pixel, the rest transparent.  I add a ripple effect of about 25% with the small setting.  I like it being subtle, myself.

I'd post an example, but really you can look at any of the pieces I've done  :Razz:

----------


## AslanC

I tried the 12x1 and no luck.  It must be a change between CS and CS3 then  :Frown: 

Coyotemax; How do you make that pattern again?

----------


## Coyotemax

I made a new file with transparent background, sized 1 wide, 3 tall
Zoom in to max, drop a dot in the top pixel (or one of the other 3, doesn't matter really).
Select all, then define pattern (I called mine 1x3 woodcut)

It was easier than trying to work in an existing file and selecting the right bits  :Smile:

----------


## AslanC

Transparency WAS the issue!

Well I am glad we got that all worked out  :Smile: 

Thanks lads  :Smile:

----------


## Coyotemax

I made the original pattern in ps7 (for the first several maps) and recreated using the same process in cs4 (just yesterday).  Seems to work the same in both.

----------


## Jarrod

Hey everyone. I'm new here, so bear with me. This type of map is exactly what I'm looking for in a new project I'm working on and I was hoping to translate this tut to GIMP. It seems some of you have had some success in this area and I was wondering if anyone has a GIMP specific tut for this map??? Maybe asking too much, but this is some great work and I would appreciate the help. Thanks!

----------


## Steel General

> Hey everyone. I'm new here, so bear with me. This type of map is exactly what I'm looking for in a new project I'm working on and I was hoping to translate this tut to GIMP. It seems some of you have had some success in this area and I was wondering if anyone has a GIMP specific tut for this map??? Maybe asking too much, but this is some great work and I would appreciate the help. Thanks!


Welcome Aboard!

The majority of the techniques used should be able to be duplicated in GIMP, there are some that be problematic. However, I don't think anybody has actually tried to convert the tutorial (If I'm wrong they'll let us know  :Smile: )

----------


## Jarrod

I figured this, but I thought it was worth a shot. I'm still experimenting and making some progress, however slight. Just thought I'd put myself out there and see what I get. Thanks for the input!

----------


## Jarrod

Okay, here's where I'm stuck... I'm on step 12 where you create a new layer filled with white and set the Ocean layer to gradient overlay. I'm unable to find a tool in gimp for gradient overlay. There's an overlay command, but it causes the tips of the rivers I drew to be shown. Any help will be repaid with eternal gratitude... and a mars bar. :-)

----------


## Steel General

Gradient Overlay is a Layer Style in PS - there is a plug-in that approximates some of these functions available for GIMP.

----------


## Marlow

> Next, for each country change the layers fill to 0%.    Click back on the first country layer.  Add a layer style of Inner glowuse red, opacity is 75%, size is 10.


Hey, I keep running in to a problem at this point. When I add the inner glow, it will only show up on the parts of the country that are on the shore. It won't show up on any part of the country's border that is touching another country. 

All these layers are above the land, so it's not that problem, and I'm at my ends. Anyone have any idea why this is happening?

----------


## AslanC

> Hey, I keep running in to a problem at this point. When I add the inner glow, it will only show up on the parts of the country that are on the shore. It won't show up on any part of the country's border that is touching another country. 
> 
> All these layers are above the land, so it's not that problem, and I'm at my ends. Anyone have any idea why this is happening?


I am having the same problem and was going to post, but you beat me too it.

Would love to know how to fix this  :Frown:

----------


## Ascension

Well I'm at a loss to figure that out.  Can you show me a shot of the layers there that are hidden in the countries folder?

----------


## AslanC

Let me make more countries on it and then I will post that screenie for you.

----------


## Coyotemax

I think we sorted the problem, the noise layer got moved above the country layers at some point.  Moving that underneath solved the issue.

yay detectivework!

----------


## AslanC

I am stupid

----------


## Marlow

This is my issue. Same thing, but the noise file is still under the country layers. Any ideas?

----------


## Ascension

It looks like you have a paper texture layer above the countries layers, could you show me the full screenshot showing the layer stack?

----------


## jameswllorimer

I could be doing something stupid but I followed your instructions to get the aging effect and it looks a bit off, too pixellated and too multi-coloured to me (at the least not like yours does!) Does it look like I've done something wrong?  All my countries are in the "Main" group on the layers palette.

Please note this is a tester map and hopefully finished product will be better!

----------


## Ascension

Looks like you've got it right so just turn the opacity down to make it more subtle.

----------


## thomas

Hello. I have a question about placing the rings around the continent. having some trouble getting it to work. here is the step.

Now we need to put in the rings around the landmasses so reset the colors to black and white. Click on 
the land layer and create a new layer. On the layers palette ctrl-click on the land layerthis loads 
this layers selection. Select > Modify > Expand = 1. Fill with white and deselect. On the layers palette, 
change the fill to 0%. Add a layer style of stroke, 1-pixel, black, outside. On the layers palette, right 
click on this layer and choose Copy layer style. Create a new layer and ctrl-click on Layer 1, Select 
> Modify > Expand = 2. Fill with white and deselect. On the layers palette, right click on this layer (it 
should be Layer 2) and choose Paste layer style.

i have a new layer above the land layer but when I try to ctrl-click to load selection nothing happens and select > modify> expand is not available. I am assuming that there has to be a selection of some sort. what selection am I suppose to load? what is suppose to be selected?

thanks

----------


## Ascension

Well, first, your land should be on its own layer with no sea.  Second, if you're using CS4 you have to ctrl+click on the little thumbnail in the layer stack and not just the layer.

----------


## thomas

Thanks. ctrl-click on the thumbnail does the trick. to complete the rings I keep creating a new layer, load the selection from the last layer, expand, fill, change fill to 0, apply the stroke layer style? just out of curiosity why the fill after the expand?

----------


## Ascension

Because with pixels there you can always add other layer styles if you want.  If you were to just select - expand then Edit - stroke you'd just have a line and you'd have to go back and fill the empty pixels with something if you wanted something like slight color variations in the "empty" space.

----------


## thomas

Hi. I am posting what I have thus far to get some feedback.  anyone have any idea what a good way to get a nice strong stroke around the border of each country so that the stroke where the countries meet that is not situated on a river matches the  stroke for rivers ans the coast?  thanks in advance.

----------


## Ascension

What I would suggest for that is to ctrl-click on the landmass layer, create a new layer on top and call it "stroke".  Switch over to the Paths tab and at the bottom click on select work path from selection.  Then pick whatever brush you want to use to make the stroke, then at the bottom click on stroke path.  Delete the path and switch back to the Layers tab.  Then draw in your nation borders.

----------


## mrrkyl

Thank you for making this tutorial. Although I am inexperienced with PS and am using an older version (7.0), I decided to try your antique style - Tear's tutorial was my introduction to PS so this map is my second. In addition, I've watched a few YouTube tutorials. With that in mind, I hope you don't mind me asking a silly question: Why can't I find the "diagonal lines" overlay pattern; is it something I need to create myself? These are the preset overlay styles I have: patterns 1 & 2, rock patterns, texture fill 1 & 2, artist surfaces, and nature.

This is what I've done so far combining some of Tear's techniques for applications you described but I couldn't emulate (I turned off some of the effects from the background and landmass to reduce the file size). The mountain style you described I didn't have a problem with, but I didn't like the way mine looked - I still haven't decided whether the mountains I substituted works for this style of map. Because I couldn't find the "diagonal lines" overlay pattern, I used "watercolor" for the territories. I'll have to clean up the sloppy political borders, rearrange the cities more to my liking (dots/squares), and determine whether or not my rivers have too many branches before continuing. Any C&C will be appreciated.

----------


## Ascension

Looks like you've done a nice job and Tear's mountains look pretty cool here - almost like a shaded relief map.  I have no idea what pattern set the pattern is in, my brain is getting old.  I know I made my own, various sizes and scales, so you can always do that but here's the one I used for this - it's 5 x 5 pixels (very small).

----------


## mrrkyl

> Looks like you've done a nice job and Tear's mountains look pretty cool here - almost like a shaded relief map.  I have no idea what pattern set the pattern is in, my brain is getting old.  I know I made my own, various sizes and scales, so you can always do that but here's the one I used for this - it's 5 x 5 pixels (very small).


Thanks for the input and example; I should get some practice creating my own patterns so why not start now? I was trying to use Tear's mountains to illustrate the hundreds of tiny lines used on this map but I can see them working as shaded relief.

----------


## Katto

You can generate different stripe patterns here for use in PS:

http://www.stripegenerator.com/

----------


## mrrkyl

Nice! Thank you for the link. :Smile:

----------


## Fallout

Hi, I'm going through the tutorial right now. I'm at the part where you add the pattern overlay to the countries but I can't seem to find the one with the diagonal lines...checked every set of patterns and can't find it. Also, the borders on my country have no inner glow. How do I get it so that country borders have the inner glow? Any idea where I went wrong?

----------


## Ascension

As for the pattern, it's there in post #112, any white between borders is because you need to leave the initial black line (it should be a 1 pixel wide line and therefore almost unnoticeable), inner glows = no...should be a full solid color that is then selected, contracted (say 10 pixels), feathered (10 pixels), and the middle is deleted leaving a glowlike appearance.

----------


## Fallout

My gradient overlay is not showing up very well for the ocean. I can't see the blue/pink come through at all. Possibly a layer problem? I have it within the "Main Map" folder which is in the order of: Land, Noise, Ocean, White.

----------


## TheMarcus7

Okay I've gotten to step 10:
"10. Lets add some cities now. Change back to the pencil and grab the hard round 5-pixels tip. Click on the
mountains layer and create a new layer, rename it to cities. Put a dot wherever you want it. On the layers palette,
right click on this layer and choose Paste layer style (this puts that 1-pixel black stroke around the dot and makes
the dot itself invisible). Since this is supposed to be something more modern we will need lots of cities and townswe
do not need to make this a sparsely settled map like we would for something medieval. Also, what makes this style
map seem nice is the sheer amount of text on it, but Ill get to that laterfor now put in lots of dots. We will only
name cities and towns so dont worry about that too muchyet. I put dots at every river delta, wherever two rivers
meet, and then wherever seems kind of empty ((pic antique 16))."

I'm not sure why, but when I right-click to select the cities layer I made, I don't see "Paste layer style"  as an option. I've messed around and found I can use Select Pixels to select all the dots, but using Layer Style > Stroke just makes the dots bigger. I think I missed a step somewhere or part of a process.

.TM7

----------


## Ascension

Most likely.  Check the earlier steps to see what the layer style is so that you can apply it to the dots.

----------


## TheMarcus7

I'm not finding it. What layer style can one paste that puts an _n_ pixel stroke around an object and knocks the object out at the same time?

.TM7

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## Coyotemax

If you put the stroke, that one is obvious.  the other one is not so much - look up near the top of the layer palette and look for the Fill percentage - default is 100% so it's completely opaque.  Changing this value changes the opacity of the object on the layer, so if you set it to 0% it will turn the object transparent without affecting the layer style.

that setting will copy and paste as part of the overall layer style.

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## TheMarcus7

That did it! Thanks CM! Thats a neat trick. I'd have never figured that out on my own...

.TM7

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## TheMarcus7

Here's a WIP image. I used the Woodblook outline style and I'm messing around with Inner Shadow rather than Inner Glow for the countries. I also used the Tree Thing for the trees.



.TM7

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## JiveMiguel

Great tutorial! I'm pretty new to these forums, and I finally needed a map for a campaign I'm developing. I really like this style, and within a days work I've got some great results. The method for making land is simply awesome! It creates nice, natural looking coastlines and lakes.

I'm a long time PS user, but this is flexing some muscles I haven't used in a while. I'm using PS7 as well, (can't justify the price of newer versions at this point) but all steps work the same (except for the Hard Mix at the very beginning, but I worked around that)

My question now is how did you get that great antique parchment look? I'll keep working at it, as I've got a lot more to go, but bravo to you for this tutorial!

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## Ascension

Just some grunge brushes and the texture filter using canvas.  For the folds there might have been a real image used but I can't remember the tut all that well.

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## JosepM

Hi,

Trying to follow the steps I have a problem.


Copy this layer. Create a new blank layer. Edit > Fill = 50% gray. On the layers palette, set the mode to 
Hard Mix, this gives us a black and white interpretation of the underlying clouds without the grays. 

This step isn't creating any interpretation.  :Frown:  I have the first cloud layer, the new layer with fill=50% and a copy of the initial layer, that if I blend to Hard Mix and I use the airbrush I create the land mass. But...

Any guide...  :Frown: 

Salut,
Josep M

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## Ascension

Your problem is probably confusing 50% gray with 50% opacity.  You want to use the true neutral gray (RGB of 128, 128, 128; hex code 808080).  At the top of the screen hit the word "Edit" then scroll down to "Fill" - a window pops up and in the box next to "Use" scroll down to "50% Gray" and voila.  Now on the layer palette change the blend mode to Hard Mix.

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## JosepM

Yes, I was confused :Smile:  Thanks ... I has try again, but after moving to the next step and begin to see how my map take form into something acceptable, I lost myself into the ocean layers ...  :Frown: 

I try again and post my questions  :Very Happy:

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## Candacis

Hello, I try to mimic this tutorial in gimp. I've come to the "noise" and "aging" layer so far. Here is my problem: First I don't know where to put the noise layer. Above all? Beneath the land? And does someone know a noise filter in gimp that works like the add noise filter in photoshop?

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## Ascension

Noise layer would have to go on top so as to not get covered up.  As for the Gimp question, no idea, sorry.

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## jtougas

I use Felimage it works very well. It's a plugin for GIMP.

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## Candacis

> Noise layer would have to go on top so as to not get covered up.  As for the Gimp question, no idea, sorry.


I'm a little confused. At a later step you say that the noise layer should be moved beneath the land layer. Why is that?
I didn't want to use plug-ins, but thanks for the adivce, will check it out ^^ In the meantime, I used a RGB Noise filter and set it on a low opacity to multiply.

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## Candacis

Sorry for the double post, but I finished my first map! I made it completly in Gimp. If anyone is interested in a Gimp converted tutorial, I can post it, too, I think.
I hope, the upload of the attachment was a success  :Question: 

It is not so nice as the photoshop outcome but close enough for my first try. 
Hope you like it ^^

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## Ascension

Looks good, man.  You can tone down the bright colors just by reducing opacity but otherwise, nice.

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## Snowflakecms

Dear Ascension, I got a tiny question for you.

"Grab a big airbrush, set the flow to 10%, and use black to fill in the ocean and white for the land. "

I use Photoshop CS5 and I can only find two Airbrushes:
Airbrush 75 Tilt Size and Angle
Airbrush Dual Brush Soft Round 45

Inexperience user here and I just wonder which of these two I should pick, or does this Tutorial work with both?

Thanks in advance.

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## LordNightwinter

I wanted to thank you for this tutorial Ascension. I finally completed my rendition of Anub'Volthrak, the desert continent my first book is centered around. Hopefully I'll be published soon, it's with an editor! Anyway I wanted to know if you have any problem with me possibly using this image (via your tutorial) in my book.

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## Ascension

No problem at all, man.  It's your world so you own it - I just teach how to make it.  For a book, though, they may want you to use black and white.  Easy fix there, just delete the color layers.

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## LordNightwinter

Yeah I'm a pretty good hand at Photoshop so that won't be a problem.  :Smile:

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## Lukc

It's a lovely tutorial and I really like some of the tricks, but those pencilly rivers ... wouldn't it help to put some anti-aliasing on them? You could just start out and make the map at, say, 600 dps instead (so, about double the dimensions, say 4000 x 4000 px) and then resize for web display. That way you wouldn't get the flat lines and all.

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## wisemoon

Hey Ascension, any chance of putting this into a Word document or PDF? If you don't have the time I might be able to do it, but I have a lot of other projects in the queue right now (argh) so I was hoping you might have already planned to do it?

wisemoon

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## arsheesh

@Wisemoon, don't know if you saw this or not, but Candacis translated Ascension's tutorial to GIMP in pdf format.  Here's the link.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

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## wisemoon

Thanks Arsheesh! I go back and forth between Photoshop and Gimp, so either one is fine. I'll take a look!

wisemoon

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## Iherbir

Hi there! I have a problem. I'm stuck in the step five. For some reason, i cannot switch the black area for grey area. I don't know how to do it and i tried a lot. Maybe is the photoshop version (CC 14) or something i did wrong (but i followed all the previous steps like the tutorial indicated). Well, i hope you will give me a hand with this issue.

Sorry to post this on the thread, but i cannot send an MP to Ascension because i'm new in the site.

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## Dowly

> Hi there! I have a problem. I'm stuck in the step five. For some reason, i cannot switch the black area for grey area. I don't know how to do it and i tried a lot. Maybe is the photoshop version (CC 14) or something i did wrong (but i followed all the previous steps like the tutorial indicated). Well, i hope you will give me a hand with this issue.


Hey,

If you don't have the 50% gray option in your fill menu, you can pick the color manually (#808080) and fill the selection with that.

-Dowly

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## Consortium11

Very useful and much appreciated tutorial: relied on it almost exclusively to produce this.

Credit for the brushes to StarRaven of deviantart

It's still pretty rough... I haven't really worked the borders into the natural geography well (and the less said about some aspects of where I placed the geography the better...), but I'd still say it's by far the best large map I've ever done. I'll almost certainly be using the techniques this tutorial demonstrates in any large-scale map going forward.

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## TK.

Step 6 on post #5 tells to change the fill to 0% on the layer palette and then add the stroke.

When I do this on P-CS6, the stroke doesn't show (since the fill is 0%, it seems). I've kept the fill to 100% and deleted the color and then stroked, but this let the in-between circles white...

Anyone can help me with this step?

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## Chick

It may be a problem with your stroke (color, thickness, spacing?).  Also, make sure you are setting Fill and not Opacity to 0%.  When Opacity is 0%, the Blending Options (such as Stroke, Glow, etc) are also 0.  When the Fill is 0%, the Blending Options still show normally.

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## TK.

> It may be a problem with your stroke (color, thickness, spacing?).  Also, make sure you are setting Fill and not Opacity to 0%.  When Opacity is 0%, the Blending Options (such as Stroke, Glow, etc) are also 0.  When the Fill is 0%, the Blending Options still show normally.


I believe I found what I was doing... there's Edit>Stroke and Layer Style>Stroke, right? I used the Edit>Stroke and ss I understand it, they are different "types" of stroke...first should stroke the selection (and when I get Fill to 0% doesn't show) while the other supposedly should be the layer mask or something like that?

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## Chick

Edit>Stroke will stroke the line you have selected and nothing else.  It makes a line that is just a line thereafter, so if you set Fill or Opacity to zero, it will not show.

Layer Style>Stroke will make a permanent border on the non-transparent part of the layer.  If you modify the layer, the stroke automatically modifies with it.  For that, setting the layer content to Fill=0 will still show the stroke, but setting it to Opacity=0 will hide the stroke as well.

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## TK.

> Edit>Stroke will stroke the line you have selected and nothing else.  It makes a line that is just a line thereafter, so if you set Fill or Opacity to zero, it will not show.
> 
> Layer Style>Stroke will make a permanent border on the non-transparent part of the layer.  If you modify the layer, the stroke automatically modifies with it.  For that, setting the layer content to Fill=0 will still show the stroke, but setting it to Opacity=0 will hide the stroke as well.


Ah, yeah...that's what I was wondering. Thanks for claryfying it. Too bad I can't Rep you yet QQ

Here's how the test ended...

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...295#post266295

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## Chick

Virtual reps are always welcome, too, thanks!!  :Smile:

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## Qoff

This guide would work for a map with more intense colours? It looks awesome in this pastel painting but how would it be in a vivid colour map?

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