Theah & Cathay

**thistledown** · 04-21-2011, 03:39 PM

So, cross posting from the introductions thread. This is my working 7th Sea map. The cannon maps are scattered among many books, all at different scales and with many descrepansies and things left off each other. So I decided to try and make a composite map of everything. Admittedly, the coast line is mostly traced from the published maps - is that a problem? Aside from resolving some conflicts, I haven't started really changing anything yet.

I'm having a problem with exporting though. I'm drawing with autoCAD, which I know isn't ideal, but it's working all right until I try to export it. I can send it out as a pdf, which looks great
http://guardiansof.mrrr.net/thistled...or%20Theah.pdf

But when I try to turn it into a jpg, I lose detail, especially on the text.
Here is the smaller version (still pretty big at 3922x2807)

Hmmm... That's supposed to be a thumbnail.... what went wrong?

And here is the better version (6520x4669)

Better, but still not great.

Does anyone know a good way to turn the pdf into a jpg without loosing quality? Or get a good jpg directly from autoCAD?

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For the map itself. I'm not happy with the hatch pattern for the mountain ranges, and would like to find a better one. I also need to draw in the sources for the rivers, especially Proliv Paterya in Ussura.

I also need to decide where to place a few cities (those with red text and question marks)

**torstan** · 04-21-2011, 03:49 PM

You can always open the pdf in photoshop (or I think in Gimp?) and then save out as a jpg. Set the quality settings high when you output and you should get a good result. Another option is to save out as a png which might be better for your crisp edges.

Not sure on the thumbnails - possibly they're not showing up yet because you've not made 5 posts yet.

Looking good. There's lots of discussion on different mountain styles in the tutorials section, so that's worth checking out.