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

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  1. #8
    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
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    Excellent!! Okay, so you have your land layer. Reviewing the tutorial, it should be a white blob with transparent background right? I don't know your full capabilities withphotoshop, so I'm writing assuming you may not know each step (please don't take it as condescending, just being thorough - when I first found this site, I thought I knew photoshop well, I've at least tripled my knowledge of it since, heh)

    1> Duplicate the layer (since it's already got the transparent background right click, then Duplicate should work, or use the menu command under the layer menu). Move this layer up so it's above your texture layers (drag it up, or a menu command under Layers to move it, you will find the commands under Layer->Arrange).
    2> Use your lasso tool to cut out your first country. You can be sloppy when out in the ocean areas since there's nothing there (background is transparent). Inland, you might take a bit more care if you like. You can use the freeform lasso or the polygon lasso (see that little triangle at the bottom of the icon, you know that means you can change your tool right? right click to bring up alternate tools) depending on your preferences and what you find easier to follow terrain with. don't worry too much about accuracy at first, you can modify your selection (up top you see those boxes, some overlap others look like they cut - that's exactly what they do - click one of those and it will change the behaviour of the lasso... if you see a + attached to the mouse pointer, it will add to your selection, etc. You can now fine tune your border). Now go to your layer menu, tell it New, and Layer Via Cut. bam, first country on it's own layer You can cut out the rest of the countries in the same manner, just remember to go back to the copied land layer each time. For now...
    3> You should right now be looking at a beautiful ocean, and a solid white land layer. In your Layer palette (that box where all your layers are labelled) near the top you will see a Fill option (sounds like you found that, excellent!). Set that to 0%. You should now see your land through the layer, the rest of your land will still be white right now. Now at the Bottom of the layer palette you'll see what looks like a little "fx" - click that and it brings a list of options, for now we'll select "Inner Glow". That will bring up the layer styles menu focused on the Inner glow, with the system default ready to go (and you should have a faint yellowish border that you can't see well except over the darker areas). Now is where the fun begins.

    I like starting off with the following settings, top to bottom (skip past things i don't mention and leave them at default): Blend mode multiply, Opacity 50%, Colour Blue (any colour will do, really), Size 15. Note that if you click in the size box (or any other number box) you can use the arrow up and arrow down keys to fine adjust the numbers in increments of one (shift click for 10). Play with the settings until you get something that looks right to you (visible but no overwhelming). Repeat for each country layer with different colours. Keep in mind that most maps that use colour for border recycle the colours, you should never need more than 4 or 5.

    If you still have troubles let me know

    [edit] oh yeah, to make your life easier - once you have your first layer style in place and you're happy with it, you'll see on the right hand side of your layer in the palette a little "fx" - right click that then choose Copy Layer Style. Now right click in the same area on your other land layers and say Paste Layer Styles. Then it's just a matter of modifying the colours, rather than setting each one in from scratch.
    Last edited by Coyotemax; 04-27-2010 at 01:52 PM.

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