Fumbling through the non-destructive mapmaking tutorial

[jelmore]

I'm going through the process as I understand it from the non-destructive mapmaking tutorial, but am not sure what I am doing wrong. Maybe someone can help me figure out where I'm making the mistakes?

First, page 3 of the tutorial. For the sea, I created three layers: Sea 2, Sea 1 and Sea base.

For the sea base, I selected a bluish color, filled the image, and added some noise: I set the amount to 12% just to give it a round number.
01 Add noise.png (Dialog settings)
02 Sea base.png (resulting image)
I filled the Sea 1 layer with white. For layer styles, I went to Color Overlay, left blend mode set to Normal, and selected a neutral gray [128,128,128] color. I set the opacity to 30%.
03 Sea 1 Color Overlay.png (Color Overlay dialog)
Then I went to Pattern Overlay, set the blend mode to Multiply, left opacity set to 100% and increased the scale to 350%. I selected a stock texture that Photoshop came with.
04 Sea 1 Pattern Overlay.png (Pattern Overlay dialog)
05 Sea 1 over Sea base.png (resulting image)

[jelmore]

I filled the Sea 2 layer with white. For layer styles, I went to Color Overlay, left blend mode set to Overlay, and selected the same neutral gray [128,128,128] color. I left the opacity at 100%.
06 Sea 2 Color Overlay.png (Color Overlay dialog)
Then I went to Pattern Overlay, left the blend mode at Normal, left opacity set to 100% and reduced the scale to 35%. I selected a lighter stock texture that Photoshop came with.
07 Sea 2 Pattern Overlay.png (Pattern Overlay dialog)
08 Sea 2 over Sea 1 and Sea base.png (resulting image)

[jelmore]

OK, first mistake. I forgot to render the clouds on Sea 2.

However, the result from the layer styles is the same as in the resulting image to date.

[jelmore]

Changing the blend mode on the Sea 2 pattern overlay to Multiply:
09 Sea 2 Pattern Overlay.png

now produces this:
10 Sea 2 over Sea 1 and Sea base.png

[jelmore]

Changing the general Blending Options on Sea 2 to Multiply:
11 Sea 2 Blending Options.png

Produces the following image:
12 Sea 2 on Sea 1 and Sea base.png

Changing the general Blending Options on Sea 1 to Multiply:
11 Sea 2 Blending Options.png

Gives us this image:
13 Sea 3 on Sea 1 and Sea base.png

So I think I've finally gotten it...?

[jelmore]

So these are the steps I have for page 3:

First, page 3 of the tutorial. For the sea, I created three layers: Sea 2, Sea 1 and Sea base.

For the sea base, I selected a bluish color, filled the image, and added some noise: I set the amount to 12% just to give it a round number.
I filled the Sea 1 layer with white. For layer styles, I went to Color Overlay, left blend mode set to Normal, and selected a neutral gray [128,128,128] color. I set the opacity to 30%.
I went to Pattern Overlay, set the blend mode to Multiply, left opacity set to 100% and increased the scale to 350%. I selected a stock texture that Photoshop came with.
I went to Blending Options and set the blend mode to Multiply.
I filled the Sea 2 layer with white. For layer styles, I went to Color Overlay, left blend mode set to Overlay, and selected the same neutral gray [128,128,128] color. I left the opacity at 100%.
I went to Pattern Overlay, set the blend mode to Multiply, left opacity set to 100% and reduced the scale to 35%. I selected a lighter stock texture that Photoshop came with.
I went to Blending Options and set the blend mode to Multiply.

[jelmore]

Created a new layer, "Land mass". Turned on the layer mask and drew my basic shape:
14 Land mass..png

I do not have access to the wonderful Jiggle filter from Alien Skin, and I want to see how much I can do using stock Photoshop filters.

I went to the Ripple filter and set the ripples to Large, and the amount to 475%:
15 Ripple Dialog..png

Which produced this:
16 Ripple Applied.png

Then I went to the Ocean Ripple filter. Set the Ripple size to 13 and the Ripple Magnitude to 10:
17 Ocean Ripple D&#10.png

Which produced this:
18 Ocean Ripple A&#11.png

[jelmore]

Now, since the red area indicates the area that is masked out, Image > Adjustements > Invert (ctrl-I or Cmd-I) will make this a proper selection:
19 Mask inverted..png

Exiting the layer mask and filling the selection with white produces:
20 Selection fill.png

[jelmore]

I selected the Layer Style and went to Outer Glow. Set Blend Mode to Multiply, Opacity to 30%, Technique to Precise, Spread to 0% and Size to 24 pixels. Rather than hand-draw the contour from the tutorial, I selected a similar contour, set the Range to 50% and the Jitter to 2:
21 Outer Glow app&#.png

I went to Pattern Overlay and selected a simple green pattern I threw together for this exercise. I set the scale to 450%:
22 Pattern Overla&#.png

I went to Stroke and selected a 1-pixel stroke:
23 Stroke applied.png

This image to date:
24 Image to date..png

[ravells]

This frustrating...I was trying to find the original PS file for the tutorial, but all I can find are the screenshots. Never mind, perhaps if I explain the underlying idea behind the sea textures it will be become clearer. The idea is very simply that you want to have two or three textures which are broken up and which seague into each other so that any repeats are hidden and you end up with a more interesting overall texture. This technique is a very common one and easily achieved in a number of ways. The easiest way to get this form of blending is by using a layer mask with clouds. I've attached a zip of a PS file. Note the use of layerstyles in the top layer with a tiling pattern on it (I hope the tiling pattern exports with the PS file if not just use your own pattern fill in the layerstyles). You'll see that in the tutorial I've used the same method of blending for the land layers too.

With the coastlines - forget the jiggle filter and the ocean ripple filter (which is a poor substitute - and the jiggle filter was never brilliant anyway) - use instead Old Guy's tutorial on making crinkly coastlines - it gives you so much more control and a much more 'natural' look and it's fast.