# Mapping Resources > Tutorials/How-To >  [Award Winner] Rising up the mountains in Photoshop

## pasis

I have been experimenting a while with ways to create realistic looking mountains in Photoshop.  I came up with very nice way to do them and actually instead of starting to create a larger map using the technique, I decided to create a tutorial to explain it. This is the first version of the document and I will add more to it as soon as I get parts finished (making forest to follow the height line of the mountains etc.). Here we have few samples I have done while experimenting. The Lizard Mountains was the first finished sample I did and it got me inspired to do the tutorial as I really liked the outcome. Another sample is the one we will create in this tutorial. So more will follow and critique and comments are welcome.

EDIT: Added latest version of the guide to this first post

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## woekan

Thanks Alot! Repped

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## Midgardsormr

Those are some terrific looking mountains, and much easier to build than I would have expected. Rep to you, and hopefully a shiny new tutorial badge is in your future!

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## Hoel

Thanks! I'll try it out on the next map i do

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## pasis

Here we have an updated version of this tutorial where I have clarified few things and added instructions to create forest.

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## Steel General

Excellent!

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## ravells

Pasis, I have just run through your tutorial and Soixante's tutorial on making mountains and can I just say that I am utterly humbled at the expertise of the members on this site.

Both of your tutorials yield utterly beautiful results and they make the process of making mountains both easy and amazingly adjustable. I am truly at a loss for words to tell you how grateful I am that you have posted this tutorial and have chosen to share your knowledge with us.

Simply amazing.

and thank you. 5 compasses and rep from me.

Ravs

here is my result with a bit of further experimentation. Using the Eyecandy 'Jiggle' filter on the low mountain slopes created the boulder effect on the south west bit of the mountains. Using Jiggle and marble (eyecandy) filters gave me that terraced effect on the mid level. Will play more.

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## pasis

Ravs, its great to hear that you have found this technique useful and that you wanted to take that even further and showed us the results. I really like the look on the biggest craters you have conjured there. If you would apply those craters to a RPG map, they would raise the players imagination right away - great stuff...
I also played a bit more with this on my coffee break and tried other settings and textures and the outcome is again very different which really underlines the versatility of this technique.
This is a really quick example as I had only 10min to play with this, but it's great what can be done in just 10min...

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## Gandwarf

I am not a Photoshop user, but those are some very good-looking mountains and I like the fact you took the time to share the creation process with us. Repped and thread rated.

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## pasis

Attached is the latest version of this tutorial. I expanded it a bit and now it covers also the ways to create hills, river and towns.
So here we go and hopefully you find it useful. In case you want to have something added, please let me know and Ill check if I can come up with a good way to do it.

And as this was my first tutorial, please let me know if the level of explanations and details was good or if I overexplaned or something.

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## jfrazierjr

> Attached is the latest version of this tutorial. I expanded it a bit and now it covers also the ways to create hills, river and towns.
> So here we go and hopefully you find it useful. In case you want to have something added, please let me know and Ill check if I can come up with a good way to do it.
> 
> And as this was my first tutorial, please let me know if the level of explanations and details was good or if I overexplaned or something.



Very nice!  I wonder if anywhere there is town brush for GIMP....  Will have to search as that's kind of a nice effect.

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## Gandwarf

Quick, lets get this man a tutorial award  :Very Happy:

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## Black Tower of Time

The example map part looks great :-) I think it is something I really needed long time. Just I need to get the tutorial working with the GIMP. 

Anyone who know GIMP well enough could get this tutorial adapted? Maybe alternative things but with similar results?

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## Vandy

Hello, Pasis.

Thank you for this most excellent tutorial.  I am really going to enjoy working through this.  You've really given us a wonderful series of steps that is going to allow us to get really good at creating terrains.

Again, thank you!

Regards,

Gary

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## Maestro

Wow, this is a great looking tutorial and the results are stunning. I'm going to have to take a further look at this when I get home tonight.

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## RobA

It would be rough in gimp as it relies heavily on layer effects  :Frown: 

-Rob A>

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## pasis

Thanks you guys for all the comments and Im glad that you have liked this. I broke my finger a while ago and have not been able to work too much lately. So this is not a major update, but I figured it is worth publishing anyway.
Here is an example of the methods used in this tutorial.

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## overlordchuck

Nice tutorial, pasis!  Good results, too.

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## Molch

These mountains are so stunning it's ridiculous!
Have my first rep, even if it's just grey.

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## MadLetter

Supreme results, supreme tutorial. I'll rep if possible.

My outcome of this tutorial below.

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## Flaterectomy

I was so glad to find your mapping technique summarised in a tutorial just now that I had to try for myself.  :Very Happy:  The textures I used were largely unmodified textures I made for Half-Life 2 level editing a while ago, so they aren't exactly perfect, and a bit dark to boot, but I think it worked out pretty well regardless.

I'll definitely be using this technique more often.

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## MadLetter

Hey Flaterectomy, would you mind putting the textures online here?

Also, if it's too dark, try to make use of the technique described inside the tutorial with adjustment layers!  :Smile: 

Just toyed around a little with yours (sorry, hope this is okay), just increased brightness and contrast both by roughly +40 and it looks even better when brightened up!  :Smile:

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## Soixante

Those do look smashing actually. Well done all of you!

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## MadLetter

Thanks and agreed. This tutorial should be honored with an award, really.

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## Flaterectomy

> Hey Flaterectomy, would you mind putting the textures online here?
> 
> Also, if it's too dark, try to make use of the technique described inside the tutorial with adjustment layers! 
> 
> Just toyed around a little with yours (sorry, hope this is okay), just increased brightness and contrast both by roughly +40 and it looks even better when brightened up!


I'll see if I can augment them in a usable way (all textures used for this map were actually dirt textures, I mearely changed the colour) and upload a pack of terrain textures in the coming days.  :Smile: 

I decided against 'post production' editing of my map, because even without fixing these things the basic steps of this tutorial will result in good looking terrain. I do like how you polished up my map though.  :Wink:

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## pasis

Madletter and Flaterectomy you have both created really good looking maps here. Madletter had already started a WIP in Regional/world mapping forum and I really like the way it's proceeding.

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## Molch

I`d love to get my hands on MadLetter`s ground and mountain textures... they look just great! *hint* *hint*?

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## MadLetter

Actually they are quite easy to obtain, really.

Open Pasis' Tutorial PDF and copy the textures out from there and use Photoshop Pattern-Maker to make a seamless texture of them  :Wink: 

Other than that, I also used exactly the settings described inside the tutorial (with the blurred noise layer and the cloud layer, both at 20% opacity).

I also brightened them up a notch or twenty.

Hope that helped!  :Very Happy:

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## Molch

> Actually they are quite easy to obtain, really.
> 
> Open Pasis' Tutorial PDF and copy the textures out from there and use Photoshop Pattern-Maker to make a seamless texture of them


Actually that sounds embarrassingly obvious. Thanks  :Smile:

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## MadLetter

No problem, ever again!  :Smile:

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## fabio0069

Wow, Pasis, this stuff is truly awesome. I'd rep you again if I could, but I need to rep a few others first!

Wicked  :Smile:

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## pasis

I have been asked to post the textures used in this tutorial and here we go. All of the textures used are self made except the water.

My PC broke down yesterday and I'm not sure when I will be able to continue with my maps, so I'll post the latest version of the tutorial as well.
I this tutorial I have added new water texture, fields, grass and some other small improvements.

In this tutorial I added grass manually, but another easy way is to modify the ground texture by making the green areas more green. and I have done so in my WIP project "World of Curunir" and here I'll add the example as well (WoC_2.jpg), so you can decide which way to use.

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## Ghorgor Cram

It's ironic Pasis because in my reply to the posts about my first digitally created map, I was refering to your map of Curunia as a style I would love to be able to achieve and I stumble upon your tutorial.

I think I love you  :Wink: 

Nough said, let's get to work.

Repped

GC

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## overwatch

This tutorial is excellent. Really top notch.

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## Gandwarf

So why didn't this thread win an award yet?  :Smile: 
I am seeing some amazing results here.

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## overlordchuck

> So why didn't this thread win an award yet?


Good question.

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## RobA

> So why didn't this thread win an award yet?


'Cause the CL's are only human  :Wink: 

On that note, let me be the first to say congrats on the award, Pasis!

-Rob A>

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## Gandwarf

> 'Cause the CL's are only human 
> 
> On that note, let me be the first to say congrats on the award, Pasis!
> 
> -Rob A>


Oh, I thought you were all highly intelligent AI routines created by Arcana. This explains a lot, including the fact you aren't on 24/7.

Congrats Pasis  :Razz:

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## pasis

Thanks you all for the kind words and thank you Guild Staff for the awards. What delights me the most is that people have liked this and I have seen the techniques used in some WIP's out there.

Regards,
Pasi

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## Clercon

Great tutorial and great work. Your maps are absolutely stunning :-)

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## NymTevlyn

Holy cow.  I wish I'd seen this thread earlier.  This is hands down the easiest way to get mountains exactly where you want them.  The only suggestions and alterations I have, are that you should use a rough texture for the mountains that tiles seamlessly and is a neutral grey color so you can paint down textures on top of it to get the exact colors you want and blend it in with the map better.

A friend showed me their map they made using this technique and I was floored.  I tried it and these mountains are so simple and easy to create and easy to alter.  Just pattern stamp and erase as needed.  This is a very interesting use of the bevel/contour/texture features.

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## The-Somberlain

Excellent tutorial! Maybe the best mountains I've seen in Photoshop! Thanks for sharing the textures also!

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## Sigurd

I spent an interesting couple of hours working through your tutorial and really appreciated it.

This is the end result.


Sigurd

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## Edanna

I enter here searching these techniques precisely for my maps and i get it in this tutorial. I am very happy for this tutorial, ¡¡thanks you very much!! it is just what i was searching. ¡¡Incredible!! ¡¡Thanks!!  :Smile:  :Smile:  :Smile:

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## pasis

Here we have the latest update to version 1.5. In it I have modified few tecniques as I found a bit better way to do them. Also added new stuff to the final touch section and few instruction to do some labeling.
And thank you all for your kind words and comments, I'm glad you have found this usefull...

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## Mmansen

I made this with some different styles. Is it ok?

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## ravells

Wow that's beautiful, but maybe just soften the ridgelines a little? IMO they're a bit strong...depends on the look you want of course.

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## Ascension

That's pretty nice Mmansen, I'd move that over to a WIP thread and put the finishing touches on it.

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## Gandwarf

That map looks beautiful. Unfortunately I can only see the thumbnail! When viewing the full version I get a red cross image.

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## Ramah

The colours of the hills and fields are wonderful but personally I feel the colour of the mountains is out of place. Those reddish mountains would seem more at home in an arid environment in my mind. Maybe a grey colour would look better?
Still, very nice looking map.

Edit: Oh yeah... really love your marsh effect. Consider yourself repped.  :Smile:

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## sarandosil

Our styles are very similar, but I think you're much better at this than I am, heh. Something I do differently that I would recommend to people is that rather than using the clone tool to draw the things that you just load the entire texture picture into the map and then use a mask tool to select where it shows. You get the same effect, but it makes it a lot easier to edit, especially if you're dealing with multiple layers of things and you want to try out how they look. Hold on let me grab a screenshot of one of my maps;

Ok here we go: http://www.routinedelirium.com/forsaken/caveguts.jpg

Everything (except the furniture) is a solid layer. It's a much more forgiving way to make things.

Thanks for the tutorial, I'm definitly gonna use it when I get around to making some geographic maps  :Very Happy:

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## Tear

This is an awesome tutorial.

Relatively easy to do and producing great results.

I've had a Westeros map sitting on the backburner for quite a while now, because I'm a player in a group using that world (It's from George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy novel series, if you are interested).

I'll run what I have through your tutorial and will let you know how it turns out.

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## WidowMakers

Very Cool tutorial!  You get my first rep ever.  

Thanks for the insight and ideas.  I know I will use this later.

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## Gandwarf

> I've had a Westeros map sitting on the backburner for quite a while now, because I'm a player in a group using that world (It's from George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy novel series, if you are interested).
> 
> I'll run what I have through your tutorial and will let you know how it turns out.


Ah, Westeros! Please do post on this forum if you decide to map it using this tutorial!

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## Steel General

Yup, being a fan of ASoIaF I would love to see another take on the map of Westeros.

Someday I'll do one of my own.

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## Coyotemax

So yeah, I tested out the tutorial, I love it!!

Thanks for that, I look forward to incorporating techniques...

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## Gandwarf

Aaargh... can't rep you yet.
That's fantastic work! Love the volcano...

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## Coyotemax

This is basically a concept sketch while practicing the tutorial, seeing if I want to do up a full version to match the last map.  So some of the terrain may not match perfectly.  But it's incredibly easy to make the terrain, and edit as you go!  wow!  Too bad we can't give out more than 1 rep point at a time, the tutorial is worth a lot.  :Razz:   Pasis, you are my hero for today!!

(and yeah, i'm kind of proud of that volcano...  I think that putting the country name under the smoke layer would give an interesting effect..)

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## Gandwarf

Actually, reach 100 rep and you will give out +2 rep  :Wink: 

I was looking at the labeling near the volcano and I was thinking the same thing: what would it look like if the name is under the smoke?

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## Coyotemax

To heck with wondering, let's take a look  :Razz:

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## Gandwarf

Better, the smoke looks like it's rising up from the map.
The label is now of course unreadable  :Very Happy: 

Did Aslan already see this?

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## Coyotemax

I sent him a message in response to a priv, but I think he logged out before I hit send..  I'm sure he would have commented by now  :Smile: 
Maybe I'll move this to a WIP thread and surprise him with a finished piece tonight, heh

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## Ascension

Your volcano smoke needs a shadow because I lost it in the terrain just to the north of it.  Pretty sweet nonetheless.

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## Tear

> Ah, Westeros! Please do post on this forum if you decide to map it using this tutorial!


Of course. Here is my current WIP:

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## Gandwarf

Ooh, that looks very promising!!
It's pretty zoomed out though. Are you working in a higher resolution than this?

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## Ascension

Nice work Tear, good color choices.

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## AslanC

:Surprised:   :Surprised: 

WOW!

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## AslanC

> Of course. Here is my current WIP:


Fantastic Tear!  Very nice work and the Westeros is such a sweet sweet place!

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## Coyotemax

That is bloody goregeous!  I love the fjords!!

*bows to the master*

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## Coyotemax

Oh and for those interested, the NDOTW has moved into it's own WIP thread..

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## Tear

> Are you working in a higher resolution than this?


Yes. Labeling all the locations would be impossible otherwise.

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## Gandwarf

> Yes. Labeling all the locations would be impossible otherwise.


Thankfully  :Very Happy:

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## Steel General

@Tear - That looks fantastic so far. Once you're done  I suggest you send that to George Martin himself. He seems to really enjoy getting stuff like this and usually has it published on his website.

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## Tear

> I suggest you send that to George Martin himself.


I can try.

But there's still some more work to do first. I spent quite some time putting all the castles in place.

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## Gandwarf

Great stuff Tear... I stand in awe.
I like the labeling a lot... the labels in the snow almost look like footprints  :Smile: 

This map definitely deserves a thread of its own!

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## Steel General

> This map definitely deserves a thread of its own!


Yes I agree, move it to it's own thread.

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## Tear

> Yes I agree, move it to it's own thread.


Ok. WIP thread is here.

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## Ilwan

Fantastic tutorial. I am working on a map atm. and am wondering how to do swamp/marches that fit with the style. Ill attach the WIP so far. Swamp is going to be in the bottom/center of this map:

any suggestions?

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## Coyotemax

I used a mold looking texture in mine, and colour tinted it to have a slightly bluish hue.  I placed it like the tree layers, but took the bevel off.  maybe give that a whirl?  If you don't have a good mold, any flattish grassland should work if you tint it properly.

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## pasis

I would try to find a suitable texture or mixture from several textures. You can always change the color tone easily in Photoshop, so you don't have to worry about exact color. Attached is one texture you could try and modify to suit your world. I hope this helps.

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## Ilwan

Thanks, I will try that texture and report back.

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## Mmansen

My pc crasht and all my maps where gone. I was realy sorry and took a break for some months. 
I thank all of you for nice complements and I will try to get some new maps up.  
Sorry for my bad, realy bad english. :-)

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## Mmansen

Emun. The language is Anglosaxon

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## Mmansen

Damn! Half finisht. 
My thanks to Terraficta and Pasis.

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## Ascension

This looks pretty good.  Hope you do some more.

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## Mmansen

Thanks! Can you open the map and see it larger?
mvh
Mikael

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## Wiltshiresaint

Great thread, and huge thanks to all contributors.  It's really useful to see the work people have done using the tutorial.

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## cereth

What an awesome tutorial!

Here is what I came up with after about 90 minutes. I'm definitely going to play around with the style some more.

Thanks much for the tutorial.

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## yukamui

Thank you very much for your great Tutorial Pasis!!!  Thanks to you I could make a map for my D&D4e/Final Fantasy campaign! This was my first attempt but your tutorial is so well explained that I am quite happy with it.  I probably will work more on it but I wanted to show it to you, as a way to say thank you.

To everyone else if it fits your needs, use it I know it's quite poor compared to the masterpieces in the great forum, but DMs sometimes just need weird places, I have not named it yet so it should fit well for anything, and I also have a version without the dots, if anyone needs it just ask.

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## Steel General

It came out quite nicely yukamui, the only thing that sticks out a bit is that the ocean texture is showing an obvious repeating pattern. 

No big deal really, but something to keep in mind for your next attempt.

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## yukamui

> It came out quite nicely yukamui, the only thing that sticks out a bit is that the ocean texture is showing an obvious repeating pattern. 
> 
> No big deal really, but something to keep in mind for your next attempt.


Thank you for pointing that out Steel General!  I have been looking at it so much that I didn't noticed this.  When improving it I will try to work that texture up a little.  Very appreciated!

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## edjogo2

Hi i tried to download the Terrain Creation Tutorial v1.5 pdf but when I go to open it, i get an error that says "There was an error opening this document. The file is damaged and could not be repaired." Can anyone else get it to work? or email me a working copy?

**I figured it out. thanks though**

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## pasis

Here is the latest version again. Sorry for delay...

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## Kaiser MacCleg

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but I've been trying out the tutorial and I really want to add my thanks to Pasis for posting this wonderful tutorial. I'm completely new to Photoshop; I only downloaded the trial version a couple of days ago, but I'm really proud of the results I've had after following the tutorial.



So thanks again Pasis for a fantastic tut! +rep

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## tilt

looks really good kaiser - only critique would be a lot of the single trees look to evenly spaced... but throw it in a WIP thread for more critique and praise  :Smile:

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## Ascension

Old or not we always appreciate someone appreciating our work.   :Smile:   So revive to your heart's content.

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## Dracos

I made this quickie map in Photoshop 7.



I think it turned out reasonably well, except for the forest texture I made.

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## raitoringo

thanks for this tuto!

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## Octavian

Hey, is anyone able to give me the forest textures used in this, or at least how to make them? It's an okay tutorial, but it doesn't seem to explain how to do anything, just tells you to do it...

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## pasis

Here is the texture I had used for the forest. You can scale it down if the treesize is too big for your map.

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## Octavian

> Here is the texture I had used for the forest. You can scale it down if the treesize is too big for your map.


Thanks.
There's something I don't understand about the mountains. Maybe the tutorial is missing something or maybe my brain is missing something, I'm not sure which. Maybe both.
The thing is the mountains are done in 3 layers, yes? But the layers do not connect, right? When I did the moutnains in the Saderan tutorial, they connected, meaning what you did on one layer would bind and seep into the other layers below it. Though your mountains look good, but the layers do not connect? Right? It might just be my lack of artistic talent, but when I do it it looks like I'm just slapping layer on layer and they don't look very good, don't look like a single mountain. So do you connect the layers and if so how, or do you just try and draw it better so they look as one?

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## Octavian

Do you have the mountain texture too? I tried making my own texture, but it turns out you need software I don't have for it to be seamless. Besides, I don't have a helicopter.

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## Octavian

Something happened to my other post I made... cannot be bothered to write it again.
It's about the mountains, are the layers connected? The PDF does not say to. When I draw them, they don't look like a single mountain, but a bunch of layers on top one another. In the Saderan tutorial I did, the layers would morph into each other. Am I doing something wrong or just lacking in talent?

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## Octavian

Well, does anyone at least have some suggestions on how to make or obtain decent ground and mountain and water textures for this style of map?

I tried taking some photos the same size as the map to use as textures. It was a good idea, but mostly the grains of dirt and so on are too big. If I tile them, they won't be seemless. There are complex ways around it. But  a push in the right direction might help a bit better.

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## pasis

@Octavian: Look for ready to use textures from Spiral Graphics and from CG textures.

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## Veldehar

Holy higgly piggly I love this tutorial! Just goofing around with PS trial for a few minutes and was floored by the effectiveness of these techniques. And that with textures I just plopped together.

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## Mixail

nice mountains

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## aeronox

If your mountain layers are appearing too distinct, make sure you're using a blurry brush and maybe tweak the layer opacity.

This is very similar to the tools I shared in 2007: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...hotoshop-tools

As far as I know, only 1 mapmaker has used it: http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...orld-of-Charun

Combining the technique with a slightly random brush gives it a more natural look. I encourage people looking for quick, easy and reusable mountain tools to give it a try.

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## Paramenides

This is an excellent tutorial. I've been following along with this tutorial as well as Tears tutorial mostly because I like how much more defined the mountains are with this one. Not quite sure how I feel about the shapes of my mountains so I'll put up my furthest progress on this map so far. I do like it a lot though. Gave you rep for this tut.  :Very Happy:  Again, thank you very much for making this tutorial.

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## Veldehar

Having seen Pasis' latest WIP, I had to track this down and bump it for an easier find, LOL. Still one of my favorites for this style of map.

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