Unnamed Practice Village Map

[ChicagoMay]

...you might consider adding a stroke to your text to make it pop more.

How do I do that now? Everything I know in Photoshop I learned in the video... and I've already forgotten most of it

[ChicagoMay]

Just added the final version of my map. Just lightened it up a bit and added a border.

[ravells]

Here's a quick photoshop tip when you're drawing buildings using the brush tool. If you want straight lines (not sure if you did in this case but if you do), then choose the pen tool, put down a dot, hold down the shift key and put a new dot down where you want the end of the line to be and PS will draw a straight line between the two points.

[ChicagoMay]

Thanks for the tip ravells! I can't remember exactly what I did, but I didnt use the brush tool for them. I used the pen tool to make a path for where all the buildings where going to be. I followed the video for that part.

[Larb]

How do I do that now? Everything I know in Photoshop I learned in the video... and I've already forgotten most of it

In the layers window at the side, when you add your text, it should appear on a separate layer. You can double click the layer to open the LAYER STYLES window (which looks like the attached image).

The layer styles are a great thing to play with but to just stroke something (it will apply the style it to EVERYTHING on that layer which is why you want the text you still stroke on it's own layer), select the Stroke check box. You then select the stroke weight, colour, etc etc.

You can also just turn it off or edit it if you don't like the style. Layer styles are fun to play around with and can save a lot of work (for example if you wanted a black outline around all of your buildings or whatever.

[ChicagoMay]

Thanks Larb, I'll play around with it laters and see how I like it!

[Gamerprinter]

The only thing in your style of map that gives me pause is the equal spacing between all the buildings - seems somewhat unnatural. While it still works, I think that your main public buildings should have good 'yard' space around them, the bulk of the smaller, private buildings would look better if they were closer together. Otherwise nice style.

GP

[bradlavario]

I am digging the embossed parchment, looks like cowhide.

[ChicagoMay]

Thanks for mentioning that Gamerprinter. I pretty much just followed the tutorial, so all the spacing is roughly the same. Maybe I'll go back and play with it... or I'll keep that in mind for the next one of this style!