[Award Winner] Mosaic Tile Map in Photoshop (& GIMP)

[pyrandon]

Labeling a mosaic map may be completed in numerous manners. My method is straightforward and easy, but certainly not the only method.

So first I select foreground & background color (I chose light--almost whites), then I place all your text on top of all other layers using the Type Tool. (I used a font called Satyr--a free download here at Dafont.com.)

Make sure the text is spelled the way you wish, because after the next few clicks they will not be editable as type! Next, I ctrl-click all my text layers in the layers palette, click Layer>Rasterize>Type, and then Layer>Merge Layers. All text is now on one layer, which I rename "Text".

Now I ctrl-click the thumbnail in this Text layer, so each letter of text is surrounded by the marching ants. I hide Text, then create a new layer on top of the stack entitled "Text Tiles". Then with my tile brush set to tiles just barely wider than my text width, I draw in all text. [see Image 1]

Note that you don't need to be neat or careful here, since the selection will not allow tiles to stray outside the ant line. As you do this, remember three things:

• Because our brush settings tile are set to paint in the direction of the painting strokes, paint in the direction of your text lines, in smooth strokes.
• Ragged edges add to the authentic feel of the tiling we're creating, so don't worry about these
• If you do stray too far out of range, remember that ctrl-alt-Z (or Edit>Undo) is your friend!

Next I Select>Modify>Expand by a few pixels, and in my land &/or sea tiles layer masks I use the Paint Bucket Tool with black. This eliminates overlap of tiles. [see Image 2]

You can delete your old Text layer, but I usually keep it--no reason, but why not, just in case.