# Mapping Resources > Tutorials/How-To >  [Award Winner] Creating Realistic Coastlines

## OldGuy

I developed my own method of creating realistic coastlines. I'm very pleased with how it turned out:

Old Guy Gaming - Creating Realistic Coastlines



I'm ready to begin work on the actual map. My sketch shows the basic shape and dimensions that I want but the outline is too smooth. I wanted to rough it up to make it look more realistic. I looked through various tutorials but everything I tried distorted the original outline more than I wanted. Probably the result of my being new at this and not following the tutorials properly.

I kept at it though until I hit upon a process that I'm pretty happy with. This was done in Adobe Photoshop.

I started with my island in white and the surrounding area in black as shown in the first image.

    * Filter | Noise | Add Noise (gaussian, monochromatic, set to 100).
    * Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (set to 2).
    * Image | Adjustments | Threshold (adjust to taste). *
    * Select Magic Wand Tool, click in black surrounding area. (contiguous checked)
    * Shift-Ctrl-I to invert the selection
    * Fill with White. (contiguous unchecked)

That's all there is to it. Now I have the beginnings of my very first Photoshop map.

* -- Move the slider to the right. You want to eat away at your landmass. Don't worry about how the land looks at this step. We will fill it back in. We just want to roughen the edges. By creating "holes" everywhere, we are trying to let the outside creep in a little bit. If there are too many holes, the outside will never hit anything to stop it. You want just enough holes to let it creep in a little but then run into a boundary. You may have to undo and try different amounts a few times to get the effect you want. Once you've done it once, it will be much easier to do than it is to explain. : )

EDIT: There is an updated version of this tutorial at Old Guy Gaming.

----------


## Ascension

I'll have to try that.

----------


## Djekspek

owh thats a real good trick! This will be a time-saver for sure! thanks for posting

----------


## ravells

Now that is really clever....got to give it a go. Any chance you can cross post the method here rather than just a link? It's just that if you decide tomorrow to go to the Far East and collect butterflies, we'll have your method recorded here for prosterity.

cheers

Ravs

----------


## OldGuy

> Any chance you can cross post the method here rather than just a link? It's just that if you decide tomorrow to go to the Far East and collect butterflies, we'll have your method recorded here for prosterity.


I don't expect to be doing any more butterfly collecting.  :Smile:   But I edited my post so it has the info and not just the link now. (I was too lazy to figure out how to use image uploads with lightbox but I got it sorted now)

----------


## waldronate

Nice work. Do the same sort of thing for mountain outlines and apply a shapeburst to it and you'll probably get a fairly plausible result.

----------


## OldGuy

> Nice work. Do the same sort of thing for mountain outlines and apply a shapeburst to it and you'll probably get a fairly plausible result.


Thank you thank you thank you for teaching me how to use shapeburst! That is amazing.

I took your suggestion and continued the same technique I used for the coast on other elements. This is pretty rough but it makes a good proof of concept and gives me a starting point.

----------


## ravells

Hmm I can't seem to get it to work properly...what were the dimensions of the image you were using to start with? I think it may be a question of scaling the noise correctly relative to the image size

Cheers

Ravs

----------


## OldGuy

> Hmm I can't seem to get it to work properly...what were the dimensions of the image you were using to start with? I think it may be a question of scaling the noise correctly relative to the image size
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Ravs


That is exactly it. My first drawing was 1440 x 830 @ 72 dpi (designed to be a wallpaper for my notebook). Last night I was testing to see how PS handled a big image as part of determining how big I want to make my continent map. I used 7200 x 7200 (24" x 24" @ 300 dpi) and made eight layers with clouds rendered on them. PS handled this very well. At 150 mb per layer that's a 1.2 gb drawing!

I then tried creating a sample map using the technique described above. The noise was completely lost at that scale. I spent half an hour with other filters trying to create larger noise "chunks" but wasn't very successful. Mosaic seems the most promising so far but I  haven't found anything that I would call a success at that resolution yet.

EDIT: Maybe I'm slow and this is what you were hinting at, but it just occurred to me to create another drawing at a smaller res, apply noise, rescale the noise drawing to match your map drawing and then copy and paste the noise drawing into your map drawing.

----------


## ravells

Ahh that would explain it then...I was using a 1,000 x 1,000 ish drawing....I'll try it on the same resolution you used for your wall paper.

----------


## RobA

Works well in Gimp, too!  Very nice technique.  Duly repped!

Translated to gimp steps I used were:
* Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
+ Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
* Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
* Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
* Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
* Ctrl-I to invert the selection
* Fill with White.

-Rob A>

----------


## ravells

Hurray I got it to work....I was being dumb (not unusual for me) .... the extra explanation about the threshold slider made it all make sense. I took the liberty to amend your tut to just add that contigous should be checked on the selection and unchecked on the fill....hope you don't mind as that threw me for a bit.

What a super tutorial. It's the fastest, simplest coastline method I've seen yet and you don't get the 'lakes at the edge of the coastline' effect.

I've rated this tutorial a straight 5 and hope that others do the same so that it gets the award it so richly deserves.

I've added this tutorial to the quickstart mapping guide.

----------


## OldGuy

I've been away for awhile. Thanks for the kind words. I'm so glad someone found it useful.

----------


## Meridok

Wow. I really love this tut. Huge thanks to OldGuy for posting it, and kudos to RobA as well, for translating it into GIMP-speak for us GIMP-newbs (well, not really newb, but not pro either...). I love what this has done to the coastline of my continent-map project. I began with a rough hand-drawn sketch on paper, that grew itself, and then once it was put onto the computer, it was transformed into something I was pretty impressed with via a sort-of version of RobA's 'creating coastlines' tut. But then what this did... wow. It was really easy to follow, and easy to play around with. I ended up selecting various regions of the map to give slightly different coastlines (the north being much more glaciated at one point, and given to fjords, and then going more minimal down south), and then even did a smaller, finer noise/modification on top of the original northern fjord-work to give the "fjords" themselves a more realistic, detailed look.

Love, love, love. Have some rep! And a rating.

----------


## OldGuy

Thanks : )

----------


## jelmore

This is very good information.  :Smile: 

The tip about starting with a smaller image to get more bang out of adding the noise and then scaling up worked very well for me.

----------


## jelmore

And, because I can't leave well enough alone, I turned this tutorial into a PDF and added some screenshots for the interim steps and dialog boxes. (I like having these handy when I'm between WiFi hotspots...) All credit for the original process belongs to OldGuy.

----------


## OldGuy

Thanks for making the pdf. I was too lazy to create the step by step screenshots but I think they help explain the process. One change though. Instead of reducing the image resolution, adding the noise, and then increasing the resolution back (which could lose some detail), You might try creating a second drawing at the reduced resolution, applying noise to that, increasing the resolution and then cutting and pasting that layer from the second drawing into the first. That should accomplish the same effect without sacrificing any detail in the original.

I haven't tried this in Gimp but it should port over. Also, I believe Gimp has the ability to scale the noise directly.

Glad you like the technique. Thanks again for the pdf!

----------


## StillCypher

Excellent and simple way to make awesome coastlines! Thanks!

----------


## ravells

Don't forget to rate the tutorial so it can get the award it so richly deserves! ten 5 star ratings (I think) is what is needed.

PS. good to see you still about Still Cypher (I need to incorporate your amendments into the City Design tutorial)....haven't forgotten!

----------


## OldGuy

> Don't forget to rate the tutorial so it can get the award it so richly deserves! ten 5 star ratings (I think) is what is needed.


Here here... I second that! <grin>

----------


## Map Novice

Very cool technique! I've been trying to figure out how to do that. Everything else I've tried ate away at the original too much.

----------


## RobA

Congrats OldGuy!

The people have spoken, the member have rated, and this is now an award winning tutorial!

-Rob A>

----------


## OldGuy

> Congrats OldGuy!
> 
> The people have spoken, the member have rated, and this is now an award winning tutorial!
> 
> -Rob A>


*Woo Hoo !!!*  :Smile:   :Smile:   :Smile:

----------


## Saule

Very usefull! Thanks for making this.

----------


## Legiazus

This looks great. And I'd really like to get it to work. I use Gimp, but there are several functions I can't seem to get to work, most notably the Add Noise function as you have described it. Is there any way to do this using Gimp?

Thanks in advance and grats on the award  :Smile:

----------


## RobA

> This looks great. And I'd really like to get it to work. I use Gimp, but there are several functions I can't seem to get to work, most notably the Add Noise function as you have described it. Is there any way to do this using Gimp?
> 
> Thanks in advance and grats on the award


See Post 11 top of page 2 by that RobA guy.  Supposedly he used Gimp, too.

-Rob A>

----------


## Legiazus

Oh, didn't notice that before. Thanks!

----------


## Jkaen

Inspired by this (and I admit unable to get it to work in GIMP due to my limited knowledge), I stumbled upon a similar and even simpler approach that works ok for me:

Filter - Noise - Spread (50)
Filter - Blur - Gausian Blur (5)
Colours -Threshold

----------


## RobA

> Inspired by this (and I admit unable to get it to work in GIMP due to my limited knowledge), I stumbled upon a similar and even simpler approach that works ok for me:
> 
> Filter - Noise - Spread (50)
> Filter - Blur - Gausian Blur (5)
> Colours -Threshold


I don't think PS has a spread filter... so this might be gimp specific.

-Rob A>

----------


## Steel General

> I don't think PS has a spread filter... so this might be gimp specific.
> 
> -Rob A>


There isn't in my CS3 Ver. 10 - but someone may have built a custom filter to duplicate whatever it does.

----------


## ravells

What does the spread filter do?

----------


## RobA

> What does the spread filter do?


It randomly moves individual pixels based on a normal distribution.  Each pixel is preserved, just moved.

-Rob A>

----------


## Ascension

That looks like the Brush Strokes - Spatter filter in PS.

----------


## Steel General

> That looks like the Brush Strokes - Spatter filter in PS.


Didn't even think about that...

----------


## RobA

> That looks like the Brush Strokes - Spatter filter in PS.


Looks similar (from a quick google search).  Spatter looks clumpier, though that could be a result of the smoothness setting.

-Rob A>

----------


## Sinastir

Thanks for the tutorial!  I am new to this all (including PS) and I found this easy and very helpful!

----------


## kael.stormseeker

It´s a really nice manouver you teach us! (or me only =p)

Thanks for the help!!!!

----------


## kael.stormseeker

I hope you guys don´t make fun of me, i know i am a newbie =)))

Is this the idea right?
(Completely Random!)

----------


## Gallifreyan

Thanks OldGuy for this fantastic tutorial, it helped me a LOT. And thanks RobA for adapting this tut to GIMP.

You can see my WIP thread over here.

----------


## asdel

> Works well in Gimp, too!  Very nice technique.  Duly repped!
> 
> Translated to gimp steps I used were:
> * Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
> + Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
> * Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
> * Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
> * Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
> * Ctrl-I to invert the selection
> ...


Rob A - 

This is a simpler version. 

* Edit | Noise | Pick (50/50)
* Edit | Blur | Gaussian (2 or so)
* Threshhold (128, but play with this a lot.)

this will add and remove from the coast line, rather than simply add to it. It maybe works better on simple shapes.

----------


## Sharpe

> Works well in Gimp, too!  Very nice technique.  Duly repped!
> 
> Translated to gimp steps I used were:
> * Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
> + Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
> * Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
> * Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
> * Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
> * Ctrl-I to invert the selection
> ...


Great tut, OldGuy! Thanks for taking the time to write this! It works amazingly well. How do you guys figure this stuff out?! XD

And, thanks, RobA, for converting it to GIMP! 

I might have went a little wild. XD

----------


## Midgardsormr

Ok, I know I spent too much time playing video games when I was a kid, but is that the map from Dragon Warrior?

----------


## Sharpe

lol, yeah.

Here's an old version that I've re-done several times since then:




> I tried again to faithfully recreate the 1986 Dragon Warrior 1 map and think I've gotten somewhere this time. 
> 
> Attachment 30675
> 
> 
> This is with the original map at 10% opacity so you can see just how surprisingly close it is to the original:
> Attachment 30676
> 
> Time to start in on the mountains... I'll place them reminiscent of the Nintendo map, without sacrificing too much realism.

----------


## Vandy

Hello, All.

I've linked the "Creating Realistic Coastlines" tutorial by OldGuy and PDFized by jetmore.

The link can be found in the Tutorials in PDF Format thread on Page 1 and in the "Photoshop-Related Tutorials" section of Post 2.

Enjoy.

Regards,

Vandy

----------


## d4saken1

Here is what I did with your tutorial and Chucks Photoshop Mapping Tutorial (Just using difference clouds and thresh hold) On the making a realistic coastline, I kept my white land mass layer on top and the black below and then:

* Filter | Noise | Add Noise (gaussian, monochromatic, set to 100).
* Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (set to 2).
* Merge the layer onto the black layer
* Select Magic Wand Tool, click in the black it will give a slight buffer around the area you intend for your land mass.

Then I inverted and then inverse and used a brush to paint in the inverse selection with white.

And that comes out to the picture below.



Its larger just had to use photobucket which resized it.

Just thought id share this info i stumbled on while using this tutorial.

----------


## Thesslian

Thanks.  This was extremely helpful.  I was reading about a technique for doing this using cloud filters and I was dreading doing it like that.  I set this up as an action in photoshop and now I can rapidly erode the landscape.  Doing it a lot makes spiffy little islands along the mainland.  Very cool.

----------


## Klaus van der Kroft

Excellent!

I had been unsuccessfully experimenting to get something like this working on some scanned map sillouettes, and your guide worked wonders.

You have my thanks, good sir!

----------


## ahriman667

Ditto.

I'm using this technique on a current project, and want to add my thanks.

cheers.

----------


## juampi_l

That's works! It's magic! LOL

----------


## ccaccus

Thanks for the tutorial.  It worked wonders on my current project. =)

----------


## Kieserson

Excellent idea - I love making maps more 'real' and this fills in coastline randomness nicely. Thanks muchos!

----------


## BookOwl

Awesome tut! I used this a couple of years ago and then this year I came back to a couple of my older maps and for the life of me, I could not remember where I figured out how to make those awesome coastlines. But I finally found it again!

----------


## Riggs802

Thank you for the tutorial, it worked perfectly. Exactly what I was looking for  :Smile:

----------


## fantasymapsbt

Very nice. Play with the values of the filters are a funny way to make interesting landmass.

----------


## JefBT

Great tutorial. I've found that using Filter > Distort > Glass can make a very similar effect.

----------


## dekee

nice! going to use it!

----------


## Deadshade

I spent many hours experimenting with this method (the GIMP version) because since I started to be interested in the mapping activity (not long ago), I have been looking for a way how to transform a handdrawn coast in a realistic one.
Unfortunately nothing I tried did that.
The reason is that a realistic looking coast is fractal. And fractality means self similarity. That is when you zoom on the coast in different resolutions, you see a similar irregular shape.
The problem with all pixel based Tools is that they only transform a line on a scale of a few pixels - say 2 or 3. So if you had a too straight coastline and apply these methods, once you zoom out you still have a too straight line with a few pixel sized bumps and nooks.
Increasing the roughness isn't a solution either because you loose then continuity - the coast dissolves in a multitude of pixel sized islands and "rivers".

So I thought that to make a realistic coast line, one would need at least 2 scales of transformations. Of course in the nature there are many more but we have computer constraints.
For instance a 2-3 pixel scale is taken care of with methods like this one.
But we'd need above it another scale (say 8-15 pixels) which doesn't work with pixel transformations but with line transformations and makes sure that continuity is conserved.

This transformation would be just a rotation and a length. Say you start at a point P which is outside of the handrawn line. The angle of the next segment is random but not Gaussian - the probability is higher in the direction of the handdrawn coast (works like a spring attracting towards the original coast) so that one doesn't loose the general shape. The length may be gaussian with the mean being the distance of P to the handrawn coast and standard deviation a parameter governing the irregularity.
This defines the new point P', the next segment PP' is drawn and rince and repeat.
The result is a fractal line at a scale of about 10 pixels which broadly follows the handdrawn shape but creates irregularity at this scale.
 If one makes the scale a parameter, one could create a very realistic looking coastline by starting at 50, then 10 and last 1 with a pixel transformation method like this one.

I am pretty sure that I don't invent anything because the maths are basic but I didn't find something like that in the Tools I have (GIMP, FT3, Wilbur, World Machine).
However this may be because I am still a newbie in using those Tools.
So if some expert among you knows of a way how to make this, I would appreciate a hint.

----------


## Lamar

wow. I love the look. Over my head at this stage, but got to try this concept in GIMP. Worth the effort.

----------


## evrka

*Awesome tutorial - used for an A3 sized image (5787 x 4093px)*
Noise amount was 225%
Gaussian blur was at 8.5

To "fill in" the landmass I simply used the magic wand and selected the black area (the water)
I created a new layer, inverted the selection (SHIFT+CTRL+I) and used the bucket tool to fill in the land mass

----------


## Robulous

Apologies for reviving an ancient thread but I use the Ocean Ripple filter in Photoshop CS6 for roughening up edges, a setting of 9/4 does the trick.

----------


## waldronate

It's a worthwhile ancient thread to bring up once in a while. As you point out, Robulous, a similar effect can be achieved with a displacement filter and a suitable displacement map.

One point about Old Guy's technique that I find useful is that the amount of blur used before thresholding effectively controls the size of the larger detail features added. Thus, one pass through with a moderate blur such as 2 or 3 followed by another pass with a smaller blur will give a more detailed coastline (subject to image resolution, of course). The two-pass technique also helps to reduce the appearance of sameness that otherwise reduces the visual appeal of the technique. It's the first two levels of a fractal, effectively.

 
2-pixel blur ........................................ 1-pixel detail added to 2-pixel blur

----------


## Runninghead

In case anyone's been playing with this bit of the process, I've had good results adding rivers in Photoshop (without Wilbur) using a layer of Difference Clouds and playing with Blend Mode. I'd love to write up a tutorial. How does one submit tutorials for Award consideration here?
I also have a Photoshop action that instantly creates a map from any shape, clouds, sea and all- it's a lot of fun!
(I appreciate there's more to cartography than just making a cool looking map, btw)

----------


## Midgardsormr

Every tutorial submitted to the Guild is eligible for the Award. I'm not sure how much people use the Rate Thread feature any more, but I think that's the means used to preselect which tutorials are considered for an Award. It used to be, anyway; I haven't been keeping up with current events around here very well.

----------


## WarBeer

Thank you for the thread and to the people that posted for "gimp". Apparently, there really is more than on way to skin a cat!

----------


## Mysterious Mapmaker XXIII

So, I tried this technique with my world, and I feel the coastlines came out too prominent. They look kind of "crumbly," in my opinion; at least, compared to what you'd see on a map of our world.



Incidentally, if you're wondering why the coastlines are somewhat inconsistent, it's mainly because I broke apart my map so that I could apply the technique differently to different areas. Just FYI.

----------


## Rongar

> So, I tried this technique with my world, and I feel the coastlines came out too prominent. They look kind of "crumbly," in my opinion; at least, compared to what you'd see on a map of our world.
> 
> 
> 
> Incidentally, if you're wondering why the coastlines are somewhat inconsistent, it's mainly because I broke apart my map so that I could apply the technique differently to different areas. Just FYI.


You may have to fiddle with the settings for both, the Gaussian blur and Threshold to get the desired results. It's very dependent of the size/resolution of your map. It also helps to repeat the process with different settings. I took your picture, loaded it into GIMP and applied the following:

HSV noise (1, 0, 0, 255)
Fade HSV noise (darken only)
Gaussian Blur (5)
Threshold (168 )

and this is the result, a simplified, less crumbly and therefor more believable coastline, for continents at least.



If this was going to be the land shape for a regional map or an island, I would run the process again to get a more distinctive coastline, but for a world map I'd say this is fine.

----------


## waldronate

The short answer is that real coastlines are multifractal rather than monofractal. For discussion purposes, that means that coastlines have smoother parts and crinklier parts. This technique tends toward the monofractal due to its use of uncorrelated noise. A way to get around this is to do a few versions of the coastlines with different amounts of noise and blur (or use the same noise and blur, but do it at 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 scale followed by resize to original resolution) and then blend those versions together manually to get your final result. The manual process gives you good control over there the smooth parts are and exactly how smooth they are.

----------


## Mysterious Mapmaker XXIII

> You may have to fiddle with the settings for both, the Gaussian blur and Threshold to get the desired results. It's very dependent of the size/resolution of your map. It also helps to repeat the process with different settings. I took your picture, loaded it into GIMP and applied the following:
> 
> HSV noise (1, 0, 0, 255)
> Fade HSV noise (darken only)
> Gaussian Blur (5)
> Threshold (168 )
> 
> and this is the result, a simplified, less crumbly and therefor more believable coastline, for continents at least.
> 
> ...


I figured it had something to do with the size of my map; the various continents definitely take up less pixels than the example shapes in the tutorial.




> The short answer is that real coastlines are multifractal rather than monofractal. For discussion purposes, that means that coastlines have smoother parts and crinklier parts. This technique tends toward the monofractal due to its use of uncorrelated noise. A way to get around this is to do a few versions of the coastlines with different amounts of noise and blur (or use the same noise and blur, but do it at 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 scale followed by resize to original resolution) and then blend those versions together manually to get your final result. The manual process gives you good control over there the smooth parts are and exactly how smooth they are.


Interesting. I suppose the question now is which parts should be smooth, and which should be not-so-smooth. Any clues there?

----------


## waldronate

The only advice that I can give you about which parts should be smoother and which crinklier is that (here on Earth, at least) it's entirely a product of natural forces such as tectonics, erosion, and sea level. How things appear on your map is further complicated by scale because very crinkly details in areas may disappear, while what would be relatively smooth areas locally might have significant detail when zoomed out.

----------


## Mysterious Mapmaker XXIII

> The only advice that I can give you about which parts should be smoother and which crinklier is that (here on Earth, at least) it's entirely a product of natural forces such as tectonics, erosion, and sea level. How things appear on your map is further complicated by scale because very crinkly details in areas may disappear, while what would be relatively smooth areas locally might have significant detail when zoomed out.


Interesting. I guess now the question is, how do tectonics, erosion and sea level affect the smoothness of coasts, anyways?

----------


## Mouse

Awesome technique, OldGuy.  

I used 2000 x 1000 base map, Gaussian blur 15, threshold of around 200. (all exaggerated from your numbers because the file was much larger)

Very *very* pleased with the result  :Very Happy: 



Thank you  :Very Happy:

----------


## Tricks

> Works well in Gimp, too!  Very nice technique.  Duly repped!
> 
> Translated to gimp steps I used were:
> * Filter | Noise | HSV Noise (Holdness 1, Hue 0, Sat 0, Value 255).
> + Edit | Fade (Darken Only)
> * Filter | Blur |Gaussian Blur (2 or adjust to taste). *(1 will create very fine distressing and the larger the blur, the larger the effect)
> * Colours | Threshold (adjust to taste). *(I found 160 is a good start, up to 185 for a lacier coastline)
> * Fuzzy Select Tool (Threshold 0), click in black surrounding area.
> * Ctrl-I to invert the selection
> ...


Worked like a charm. I love that there are resources for GiMP on this site. As I am VERY NEW to the site, is there an area that is ONLY GiMP tips and tricks? 
I have looked a couple times so far and have not found it yet.

----------


## Mouse

No separate areas Tricks, but that's because we are an inclusive lot.  Most of us use more than one app to make a single map, so it wouldn't really make much sense to separate it all into different software departments.

Have you tried just putting 'GIMP' in the search engine and doing an advanced search in this forum only?

----------


## Tricks

> No separate areas Tricks, but that's because we are an inclusive lot.  Most of us use more than one app to make a single map, so it wouldn't really make much sense to separate it all into different software departments.
> 
> Have you tried just putting 'GIMP' in the search engine and doing an advanced search in this forum only?



LOL I'm barely able to work with GiMP. I can't imagine using more than one program to make a map. 
Maybe I should just hire someone to bang me out a map. LOL

----------


## Wildeman40

thank you for the tutorial!

----------


## FantasyFernweh

This is a glorious tutorial - I hand draw maps, and always have a hard time creating organically (read: randomized) created variances. Mentally, I always fall into an orderly, even-spaced variation. I think I'll try something like this with a loose landmass drawing, then use a lightbox to trace the randomized variations! Thanks for the tips!

----------


## FerryK

SOmething I have to try out. Seen it a few times pop up now  :Wink:

----------

