Using Mapping Elements as brushes in photoshop question
Hello Folks, I'm brand new to drawing on the computer, and am having trouble with cs6 of photoshop. Specifically I'm having trouble with using brushes for map elements.
When you cartography giants use brushes representing a mountain or a tree or what have you to save time, how do you do it? The way I'm using them (example in color and huge to let people be able to see) there is no background nor foreground, each element is just plopped on top of the one before it. I was assuming these brushes people use were to be able to kind of plop things quickly. Do you guys "paint" each mountain/peak on different layers? Am I just missing a really obvious/easy way to have things not paint over the last thing? I'm just really confused. (most of these elements have blank canvas with no white or black and if you place another mountain for example on top or near it to get that nice effect of a realistic mountain range, you can see the line of the past mountain in the new mountains "bright" area).
Looking through the tutorial sections and the help area here I'm feeling a bit out of my league and I don't even know how to ask my question, any ideas?
Using brushes mean you always at risk of hiding the other element under and it looks weird if your not cautious. One way to deal with it is too start by the top (the end of the mountain chain) and add element over it by going down, so the element don't overlap if you know what I mean.
The other solution, is to use the duplicate tool, it's much easier than with the brushes and it's less likely to have ugly overlaps.
This is an unfortunate characteristic of PS brushes and there is no real way around it. As Azelor suggests, you can avoid overlapping them.
What I have done on occasion is to use the brushes on an individual transparent layer, then put a opaque layer (white usually) under it, select everything outside the shapes and delete that from the underlayer. Now you have a opaque shape instead of a brush.
Once you have a set of those, you can use a clone stamp tool to place them instead of the brush.
I happen to have written a tutorial to address this very problem: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=7336
That's what Chick described, but with pictures!
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
Pictures are good! Thanks, MidgardsormrOriginally Posted by Midgardsormr
Thanks so much guys! I admit ignorance of the terminology and with Photoshop, as such the library of wonderful tutorials were difficult to dig through without knowing what question I was asking. I've started to use the technique in your tutorial as described, and it's working like a charm!
Glad it's helping! Your very specific question with a helpful illustration made it easy to provide a solution.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
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