*** March Challenge VOTING - Mapping in Black and White ***

[cereth]

I love all feedback I get, both positive and negative. I have learned so much from this community and value everyone's opinions, even when I disagree. I have placed second in so many map challenges that I've lost count, but it always forces me to go out the next month and push myself a little farther.

[Lukc]

I have to agree. I hope I did not come across as being opposed to Hai-etik's critique of my work. On the contrary, I took it quite seriously and I agree that he has made several very valid points. On other items, I responded with my reasoning behind some of the problems that eventually arose - such as the question of map-and-font - this is something that has interested me for a long time and in my challenge entry I picked a solution, which ended up looking dissonant.

Often when you spend a long time working on something, you become blind to problems and errors. A second, third, fourth point of view helps so much to improve the quality of work that it's quite amazing. So, to all who take the time to comment and analyse: thank you!

[Hai-Etlik]

I have to agree. I hope I did not come across as being opposed to Hai-etik's critique of my work. On the contrary, I took it quite seriously and I agree that he has made several very valid points. On other items, I responded with my reasoning behind some of the problems that eventually arose - such as the question of map-and-font - this is something that has interested me for a long time and in my challenge entry I picked a solution, which ended up looking dissonant.

Well it was the "call for peace" bit that bothered me. Up until then I had thought things were well, peaceful and going well. When You posted that I thought you were saying that you thought I was being hostile in my criticism.

[Lukc]

Well it was the "call for peace" bit that bothered me. Up until then I had thought things were well, peaceful and going well. When You posted that I thought you were saying that you thought I was being hostile in my criticism.

No, I didn't think you were being hostile at all - ravells just posted a pretty picture of a kitty and doggy and I have a kitty for my avatar, so it seemed to fit in. Personally I always find your comments and critiques enlightening because, frankly, you know so much more about GIS and the mathematics of cartography than me.

[Hai-Etlik]

No, I didn't think you were being hostile at all - ravells just posted a pretty picture of a kitty and doggy and I have a kitty for my avatar, so it seemed to fit in. Personally I always find your comments and critiques enlightening because, frankly, you know so much more about GIS and the mathematics of cartography than me.

Heh, well, I seem to have provoked a whole page and a half of extra comments in this thread over a misunderstanding then.

[Hai-Etlik]

I know how to get rid of gray pixels ... I did not do it on my map because it would have looked wired... yours holds up very well to the possess. for all who are wondering.

Save your files with the "Save For Web" (in PhotoShop not sure how in GIMP). This gives you the ability to save files with only the colors you want. This also greatly reduces the file size.

I did something similar with mine. The symbol layer had to be rasterized separately from the rest in order to keep Inkscape from choking on the 80000 or so discrete symbols. So I exported that from QGIS at 600 DPI, then reduced the colour depth in GIMP, exported the rest to an SVG, and loaded the two into Inkscape.

This led to a mismatch between the look of the antialiased vector elements and the non-anti-aliased raster ones. So I exported from Inkscape at 600 DPI, loaded into the GIMP again, reduced colour depth to 2 again, and saved that for printing (I designed it for printing at 22x17in). Then returned to greyscale, and and resampled to 200 DPI to get a consistent but anti-aliased look. Finally I reduced colour depth to 8 which kept the file size down without any significant visual impact.

[Gidde]

Thanks for the step by step on that, Hai. This is a pretty important process for all of us wannabe novelists who are in here trying to make maps for our writing!!

[TheBigBlueFrog]

Hi, I'm new here. Just voted for Lukc's Rudvik: City of the Pit Lord. The forced 1-point perspective got me. It makes me want to walk around the place.

[Diamond]

Ah, so close... I think I was within 3 votes at one point.

Congrats on the win, Lukc; very well-deserved!

[Gidde]

Congrats Lukc!