# Mapping Resources > How Do I ??? >  How do I export an AutoREALM map?

## hoppa

I'm still a noob at this whole AutoREALM thing, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to convert my finished map into a file that Photoshop will let me upload.  Please help.

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## Revock

you should be able to choose "save as", you can do .bmp or .jpg that way. 

    I've been saving mine as a .jpg files to work with them in Gimp, using the colors i chose for features in autorealm to replace them using techniques from the tutorials here.

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## Midgardsormr

For what it's worth, you might be better off exporting from AutoREALM as .bmp. Jpeg is a lossy compression format, so immediately when you save, you're losing information and degrading the quality of your image. It may not be obvious to the eye, but as you start to process it, it will become apparent. Also, if you open a jpeg, work on it a bit, and save out as a jpeg again, you're losing even more information. You should only use jpeg for your finalized export to upload to the web. 

Of course, if you're throwing away all the pixels from AutoREALM (just using them as masks or something), it doesn't matter as much, and you can save hard drive space with the compressed format.

If you want more information, I posted a guide to export formats some time ago. Come to think of it, that could probably do with an update.

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## Lwaxana

Yes, jpg makes no sense. I always convert AR files to bmp. 

This is also why you are better off to limit the size of AR files - as in you create a world, do the continents one by one and then later put them together in another gfx program. I managed to crash my comp while trying to convert a whole world to bmp  :Razz:

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## Revock

:Smile:  as far as my stuff goes, yep using them as masks, taking a workable size chunk, say 1024x768, working on them in Gimp using some of the techniques from here and then matching them to the AR map as overlays.

Thanks for the advice about .jpg loss, i'll use .bmp untill i'm happy with the gimp results from now on.  As far as crashing i suppose my method won't cause i'm doing sections, dunno yet how its going to work when i get into placing alot of finished overlays onto the AR map, if it crashes i'll limit that.

The original reason i chose AR was the ability to use the distance ruler and pan in and out, any idea what the map file size limit is? If i do as suggested and only overlay a finished .jpg image into AR of each section.

I had expected the problem to be matching the sections when i place them into AR, hadn't come to that yet since I haven't done adjacent sections yet.  I had hoped doing it this way would lend consistency to any  pretty map i might make from the AR maps I planned to use for DM materials.

 My ultimate goal is maintaining the heightfields generated from the technigues here and in Wilbur for NWN2 areas while being able to produce decent maps for the server website and planning maps via AR.

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