Help! (For national borders, longitude and latitude, and general details)

[Coyotemax]

Guyanonymous: in later versions of PS you can tell it to display a grid, and snap to the grid (very handy). I don't recall if PS7 has a grid or not, I believe it does - check Rulers and Measurements prefs to see if you can set up grid divisions, then under the View menu there should be a Snap To as well as a view Grid option to make life easier. You're right about inkscape

If one is going to paste in a compass, rather than delete the white try setting the layer to multiply, that'll deal with the white (also applies if you want to add clipart pieces for flavour).

For international borders, you might want to consider having your entire land shape as a single object on it's own layer (if you don't already). the easiest way off the top of my head at this point would be then to use the lasso tool (or pen if you're comfy with it) to cut the countries to their own layer. Once that's done, give them an inner glow effect and set fill to 0% so all you see is the layer effect.

[Wiggles]

Guyanonymous:
For international borders, you might want to consider having your entire land shape as a single object on it's own layer (if you don't already). the easiest way off the top of my head at this point would be then to use the lasso tool (or pen if you're comfy with it) to cut the countries to their own layer. Once that's done, give them an inner glow effect and set fill to 0% so all you see is the layer effect.

I have a few questions here. Is there any way to cleverly get the selection to adhere to my coasts? I used the magnetic lasso tool which worked well except it missed out little peninsulas and off-shore islands. On the subject of islands, how do I add them to my selection without putting borders in the see? The other problem I have here is that when I tell it to 'cut and make a new layer' the world gets all- for lack of a better term-boned, everywhere but my selection turns white.

On a full world map (Small Scale), you need to be using a Mercator projection for a compass rose to be appropriate, and a scale bar will only be appropriate for an equidistant projection, in which case it will still only be appropriate for specific measurements (Through a certain point or along a certain axis)

The example map with the tutorial is in Plate Carrée projection. Direction is not preserved, and distance is only preserved along the vertical axis. The compasses and Rumb lines are inappropriate, though a simple north arrow would not be, and although you could arguably use a scale bar for measuring distances north-south, it would be misleading unless you added a note to indicate that restriction.

Sorry, all the map-maker lingo confuses me- do you have a idiot proof version? My map is only a map of a subcontinet, if that helps at all, and I was thinking along the lines of one of those little ornate boxes with the measurement in it that says, for instance, 0 to 100 miles.