[Award Winner] My atlas style in PS

[TheJayde]

I figured it out. For some reason, I couldnt find the words gradiant overlay in the document. Though It's all good and this tutorial has given me a lot of education in the creation of maps and the like. I even took your idea and tweaked a lot of the ideals put out in yours. Like, I made my mountains more prominent as an example. I did that by copying the mountain ranges twice, and one of them had the color overlay of pink, so that the other and all the other layers balanced it out to a more solid brown color.

Anywho, when Im not being tardus, the tutorial works great. Thanks a lot!

[TheJayde]

The more I look at this and the more I do, the only thing that I have an issue with with this map style is that the mountains and hills aren't defined as well as I would like them to be, and forests aren't defined at all. Also my world has north being closer to the equator and there is a lot of jungle involved, so the gradient overlay doesn't really suit a jungle region. Great if you want tons of desert though, which means on the other continent of my world, I am likely to use this style for it, but until then.

Edit: As I think about it, I could just erase the areas that I wanted to be jungle in the Base layer, and build a base 2 layer in the areas where the jungle is going to come into play.

[Nokomys]

Hi there, I am new to your forums. Well kind of, I have been lurking for probably 1 or 2 months off and on. I am trying Ascensions TUT here and I want to say this is awesome and thanks for sharing it. I am confused I think and stopped after I got a ways into it. I got lost int he duplicate layers so I am sure that I have killed off a layer that I need. I am missing the Base [ this was merged with ocean after making a copy of the background copy and so base is gone]. I noticed that something was amiss when I got to hitting ctrl+f to drop the last used lighting effects on Land. In the beginning of the TUT I was really confused so I started writing it out as i went looking at Ascensions TUT for the guide of course and this is what I have. Maybe someone can tell me what I have done wrong? Any detailed answers on the steps would be greatly appreciated.
Screenshots
Steps as I understood them:
Step 1. Layer 1= Rename to BG and render clouds on it.

Step 2. Layer 2= Duplicate layer 1, it will be called BG 1 Copy.

Step 3. Layer 3= Create new layer, Click EDIT>Fill set to 50% gray. On layers list click on the dropdown where it says normal and select hard mix. Rename this layer to Base.

Step 4. Select BG 1 Copy and start painting. {Grab a big airbrush and at the top of the screen reduce the flow to 10%. I start with the Airbrush soft round 300 and use smaller airbrushes as needed. Use black to define the ocean and white to define the land.
9.
}

Step 5. Duplicate BG 1 Copy and name it Ocean. Select it and Base then right click and select link.

Step 6. now you want to Merge them. Click layers>Merge or ctrl+e.This is going to leae you with Base. [Rename to Ocean?]

Step 7. Select>Color Range. Click the eye dropper and click on black, set Fuzzyness to 200. Click ok. Now click Delete. Now deselect ctrl+d.
**NOTE to Photoshop Elements users: If you are using Photoshop Elements then you will have to use the Magic Wand tool and click on a black pixel somewhere then delete and deselect. Hide the “base” layer and click on the “ocean” layer. **

Step 8. Duplicate this layer and rename it from Ocean Copy to Hills. Now select Filter>Render>Difference Clouds, then hit ctrl+f to do it again and duplicate it to call it Mountains.

Step 9. Hide the Mountains layer. Click hills then Filter>Noise> Add Noise 5% gaussian and monochromatic.

Step 10. Click on the Mountains layer and then Filter > Render > Lighting effects = use the following settings:
Light type: Spotlight
Intensity= 25 Full
Focus= 100 wide
Properties--
Gloss= -100 Matte
Material= 100 Metallic
Exposure= 0
Ambience= 8 Positive
Texture Channel = Red
Hight= Mountains 100
Click ok

Step 11. Hide Mountains layer and select Hills. And then
Filter > Render > Lighting effects = use the following settings (there are 5 omni lights all with the same settings...to add a new light click on the light bulb):
Change light type to Omni and change Intensity to 6 full and leave the rest the same as is. Move the center of the circle to the lower right corner of your map.

Step 12. Hide the Hills layer. click on Ocean. Duplicate it and rename to Land. Hit ctrl+f to repeat the last lighting effects again.

[Ascension]

You have to duplicate the ocean layer.

[Nokomys]

Ok I know it has to be duplicated... I guess maybe I did not make it clear.. sorry... I am redoing this and here is where I am currently confused...
Step 8 says "8. Click back on the “ocean” layer (on the layers palette) and duplicate it. Grab a big airbrush and at the top of the screen reduce the flow to 10%. I start with the Airbrush soft round 300 and use smaller airbrushes as needed. Use black to define the ocean and white to define the land.

Then Step 10 says "10. When happy, duplicate this layer (it will be named “ocean copy”) and click on the “base” layer. Link the “base” and “ocean copy” layers together; on the layer palette you will see a box with an eye and a box with a brush in it – the brush means that this is the active layer and the eye means that the layer is visible. If you click in an empty box a chain will appear...this is the link. Once the layers are linked then merge down (ctrl+e) or Layer > Merge down.

so on this when looking at it.. I would see Ocean ... Ocean Copy ... Ocean Copy Copy.
So do you paint on Ocean Copy and then duplicate it [ocean copy copy] then link ocean copy copy to Base and merge? because this is what I would have. Right now I have [in order from bottom to top] Background / Ocean / Ocean Copy [which I have painted on to fix the ocean / Base.] Do I duplicate Ocean copy then link and merge it to base? I hope I am not confusing you hehe.

** Correction it makes Ocean Copy 2...

P.S. Sorry to be a pain in the butt....

[Ascension]

No you should have ocean and ocean copy and base. When base merges down to ocean copy, if linked, the resulting layer will be named base. At that point you should have ocean and base.

[Nokomys]

ah ok. now I follow, I do apologize again for being a pain it just for some reason could not wrap my head around it and was so confused.

[Nokomys]

Now that I have that straight, I had a question about the position of the layers on your instruction it says:
20. You should have 6 layers; from top to bottom: “base”, “mountains” and “hills” (all hidden) then “land”, “ocean” and “background” (all visible) and you should still be on the “land” layer.

Currently I have Mountains, Hills, Base, Ocean, Background. I ran into this on the other attempt and when i moved it [Base] to the top to match what your instruction had there I had more problems with what was displayed. Also when I attempt to start adding the color instead of the landmass being filled gradient the sea fills.
Image set 3. I will keep trying to get this figured out and post if I solve it but in the meantime if you get a chance to look at it let me know what you think I did wrong. Thank you... *NOTE I did move Base to the top to match what you listed in the screen shots and then tried to add on the gradients. =)

[Nokomys]

Ok I had to skip Select>Inverse to get it right.

[Nokomys]

another update.. I feel stupid now as I discovered that I did indeed totally miss a step.. Hide base and duplicate ocean to name it hills. I had been duplicating Base and then moving forward. I bet it all works perfectly now. lol jeesh.. thank you for putting up with me and sorry I spammed the forums here. I think I may be ok now. I'll post a image when it is done.