[Award Winner] A medieval town map tutorial in Photoshop

[pyrandon]

BUILDINGS
Let's give the buildings some life now. Ctrl-click (or Apple-click) in the “Buildings” layer to select the buildings, then add some random color variations with a small, soft brush; since the buildings are selected you should be able to draw quickly without leaving the lines.

Then apply a couple layer styles: Drop Shadow first, then Bevel & Emboss. [You can see my settings in the image, below. The texture I'm using is simply a pattern I created out of a picture of a brick wall.]

Now copy this "buildings" layer on top of itself. Gaussian Blur the new layer, then drop the opacity way down to reduce the sharp edges slightly.

I also copied the buildings one more time on top of the other two, then set the layer blend mode to "multiply" & played with opacity.


ROADS
To create eye interest in the roads set the "roads" layer's blending mode to "overlay" and then Gaussian Blur it ever so slightly.

Then run Filter>Texture>Texturizer, with sandstone texture set to the smallest scaling (50%) and verrrrry shallow relief. I also ran Filter>Artistic>Paint daubs on the roads to break the monotony of the sandstone.

Copy this layer on top of the original and set the upper's blending mode to "multiply"; play with the opacity to taste. [see image, below]

With a darker brown I also drew in lines for bridges, which turned out fair.