How do I establish a scale for a map?

[Raic]

I am working on my third place of interest for my Fantasy World Creation Project –

The WIP Atlas for which can be found here –

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...1949-Atlas-Map

And two WIP town/cities found here –

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ty-of-Vallanox

and here - http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...weetwater-Port

I am on my third town/city. A run down pirate port of call named – Blackfall Point. It can be found on the bottom right hand quadrant of the Atlas Map.

A person participating in the project sent me a rough sketch of the town, but when I go to replicate his basic layout I find myself struggling with the scale – perspective of the map. The towers I added to the basic coastline just do not look right to me.

Can someone provide me with basic guidelines on how you go about choosing a sheet size and resolution in Photoshop and your basic approach to deciding building size vs terrain feature size? This is a rather stark – desert environment so there is not a lot for my eye to work with and everything I add to the base map just does not look right. Any help provided is very much appreciated.

Thanks All

Raic