[Award Winner] A medieval town map tutorial in Photoshop

[pyrandon]

Now, the above style is perfect for a finished map, but I myself prefer to utilize the power of Photoshop's many filters to create a somewhat more "artistic" appearance. With filters the sky is the limit as to which look you choose for your finished map.

PRE-FILTERING
Before filtering do the following:

1. Group all your text (if in more than one layer) by ctrl-clicking them all, then clicking the "create a new group" folder in the layers window

2. In the same way also group the entire map ASIDE FROM your matte/frame. I named my new group "map elements".

3. Drag the group containing your map elements to the "create a new layer" button, which creates a new group. Then Layer->Merge Group. I renamed mine "map". This layer will serve as your copy-able map upon which you can run multiple filters; you will not change this layer.

4. Copy the new "map" layer and rename it "filtered map". This layer will be the actual layer you will filter.

5. Hide both "map elements" and "map", and lock all layers other than "filtered map".

[see image, below, for how your layers window should end up.]


FILTERS

The first is one of my favorites: poster edges. The layers are, from top to bottom:
1. Dry brush--very smudgy, set to 30% opacity
2. Poster edges, set darker/thicker. This was then Gaussian blurred up, & set to 30% opacity
3. Poster edges, thin & clean

The next is basically the same, but using the watercolor filter. This one is too smudgy to be used as a detailed location map, perhaps, but I think it has a pleasing appearance.
1. Watercolored with medium shadows & high detail, then blurred slightly. Layer set to "lighten" & 50% opacity
2. Watercolored with 0 shadow & high detail. Blurred only about 3 px.

These are two of a million varieties, my friends. You could even go back and filter individual elements or combinations of the original elements, such as I did with the third map. For that one I chose the basic roads, homes, elevation, river, rocks, & trees, copied them onto one layer set to "multiply", then Filter->sharpen->sharpen edges about 5 times. Then I ran the cutout filter. For the background I changed my black frame to brown & ran the texturizer filter as canvas. I also messed with opacity and doubled up a couple filters, but you get the idea.

There you are! I hope you found this tutorial at least mildly useful! Take care.

[pyrandon]

The font I used is called Aniron. It's Lord of the Rings-type font available here: http://www.thehutt.de/tolkien/fonts.html

[ravells]

I love the fellowship font. Great find, Don!

[Sigurd]

I so appreciate you tying this back to a free random generator. Photoshop ability tied to Gaming Foresight!


Thanks a lot.

[RPMiller]

I so appreciate you tying this back to a free random generator. Photoshop ability tied to Gaming Foresight!


Thanks a lot.

Welcome to the Guild Sigurd! Always a pleasure to meet new folks and get feedback. Please feel free to hang out and look around, and post comments and questions. You'll find that we are a very friendly bunch and really want to help each other the best we can.

[pyrandon]

Hey thanks, Sigurd! While that free generator is by no means awesome, I've really found it 1) saves me time on some grunt work, and 2) creates patterns that spark my creativity!

Welcome to the Guild, BTW--make sure to post a "hi" in the Member Introduction area! Thanks for your comment, too.

[Badger]

Very informative tutorial indeed, Kudo's to pyrandon and such a thorough step-by-step walk through. When I grow up, I wanna be just like you