Very First World Map Attempt

[EsotericForest]

Thanks guys for all the positive feedback, I feel better already about how the map is coming. I will take your advice Coyotemax and read some of those tutorials carefully. Thankfully I do have Photoshop Elements 7, though I'm not very used to it yet. I've been using Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 for years, so switching to something else is taking some getting used to...though when I can't figure out how to do something I still revert back to PSP.

But anyway, one concern I'm having is because my continents don't take up a whole lot of water space, it's leaving me with a lot of blank ocean. I'm not really sure what to do about it, because I have the fear that if I add another small continent, or several small islands in those spaces, the map will end up looking more like a dalmation than anything .

[Diamond]

But anyway, one concern I'm having is because my continents don't take up a whole lot of water space, it's leaving me with a lot of blank ocean. I'm not really sure what to do about it, because I have the fear that if I add another small continent, or several small islands in those spaces, the map will end up looking more like a dalmation than anything .

Well, you could turn that scattered continent archipelago on the left that looks kinda like a heart-shape into one big continent - fill in the middle with land. Then you could add more land to the bottom right - mid-sized islands, etc. That way the map would look more 'balanced', if that's the effect you're going for.