Country coloring and map original colors

[Exin]

Ok, since my experience in map making is equal to zero or close, this question and problem might seem too simple to most, but for me its quite complicated.

So here is my problem: How do you edit a map as in adding nation/country/faction colors on it, to delimit their extension on the world map, without harming the map colors. My intention is to add these country/nation colors to the map, but without blocking or covering the map terrain colors, aka forests, mountains, etc, just enough so that the nation color can be distinguished over the terrain colors.

What program is recommended and is there a tutorial that might help me?

Thank you in advance.

[Freodin]

If you use a program like GIMP or Photoshop, you can - and should! - use different layers for these different graphical elements. This way you can overly a political map over your base map without distroying the original.

I don't know if this is possible as well in the vector oriented programs, as I don't use these.

[tilt]

I'd use photoshop, but gimp can work (just don't know it) - you make a new layer to make sure you don't destroy the original image. Then you make a selection of the country needed. You can then choose to color in the whole country (for the classic political map look) or a more subtle coloring of the border only

[Jaxilon]

Yep - I know you can do this in Gimp. Just create a new layer and set the layer mode to 'overlay' or whatever looks good (maybe just lower the opacity) and fill in the colors you want for each area. You can use gradients if you want to just have the outer edges colored as well. I created borders like this on "unlabeled commission w/o borders" and "unlabeled with borders' map.