Tips on Making a Town Map less Photoshoppy

[mearrin69]

On shadows, I often copy the layer several times overlaid with black. I then bump the layers away from the original layer progressively (the first by a couple, the second by a couple more, etc.) and use the gaussian blur filter on each layer with a higher setting the further you get from the original layer. Then I'll flatten them all and set them (usually) on multiply with a low opacity. For buildings of varied height I might do this several times to create the effect using just portions of the building layer (i.e. the first floors will make a shadow layer followed by the second floors, etc.) If I've got something odd like a ship with masts or a steeple then I'll do separate shadows for that as well. Remember - if you use multiple shadow layers you'll probably want to just keep them "live" until you're done. If you have several overlapping layers on multiply blend mode you may end up with strange effects that don't work well.
M

Regarding sunlight and crisp shadows...the shadows are always more crisp near the source of the shadow and the object receiving the shadow (e.g. tree trunk and the ground next to it) and fuzzier when the source and receiver are further away (e.g. tree top and the ground 25' away). Go stand outside if you want to see what I mean. The shadow near your feet is crisp-edged but the outline of your head will be blurrier.