[Award Winner] My atlas style in PS

[Ascension]

Well, it's complicated but I can explain how to do it. You might mess it up a few times because it's tricky. Make a new image at the size you want and fill it with clouds. On your original image and take the clouds layer from that, copy it, and paste it into the new document. You should see a clearly defined edge between the two clouds layers. Now take your "base" layer from the original and copy that into the new document - this lets you know where to stop editing or airbrushing. Now take an eraser with an airbrush tip and low opacity and erase the edge. I mean low opacity, like 5% or less. Flip back and forth between black and white colors and airbrush places where the eraser doesn't seem to work well. What you want to end up with is something where the "new" ocean is much darker and the areas around the coast are lighter and the hard edge is blended out into oblivion. If you have a tablet you can have much greater control of erasing and airbrushing. Once you have this then delete the "base" layer from the new document and merge the two cloud layers together. Now do the steps in the tut for ocean colors and then copy everything from the original document into the new one (ctrl-click a layer in the original, edit - copy then edit - paste - this will keep things centered so they should all line up properly in the new document). All you have to do now is save the document as something like "continent tweaked" or something like that.

[The_Colorless_Mage]

Ascension,

Thanks, first, for your prompt reply!

My learnings, after trying the method you suggested: It works...but the final result still isn't nearly as appealing as the initial map appeared. Thus, I've decided to start over from scratch. I feel that, after going through the entire procedure once, I can apply much of what I learned to make a much better map that even my first attempt (which looked pretty good, in my estimation, actually). As they say: Practice makes perfect.

I'd like to ask one more question, if I might, in closing. The landmass I'm creating is something like Iceland: Cold and mountainous. Do you have any specific tips in setting up my colors and altitudes to reflect this? I guess what I'm asking is at what stages in particular can I alter these two characteristics of the map (I'm a relative novice with Photoshop, as you no doubt suspect). I need my map to look icy and my mountains to be real spires!!!

Thanks again for the wonderful tutorial!!!


TCM

[Ascension]

Well, I don't really know how to make them look pointier from a top down view...never thought about it. You could always do a few more renditions of the difference clouds step but this just makes them wigglier and not really pointy but it does give a different look. I'll have to think on it and experiment and get back to you on that but if I don't then that means I haven't found anything. To have some accentuated peaks I use a 3-pixel hard round brush tip (on a new layer after everything else is done) with at least 300% spacing, some big scatter, and some size jitter and then I emboss that and it sort of makes individual peaks but they're not really pointier or anything. As for making the land look frigid and barren (hey, sounds like my last girlfriend badum dum) take the "base" layer and set it's blend mode to color. This will make your land grayscale then add a color overlay of a nice brown and mess around with blend modes until you get the blacks looking brown and the whites staying white - you may have to mess around with blend modes, opacities, and different browns to get a good result. Then on a new layer airbrush in some greens and tans wherever you want, but sparingly, and with small brushes (also set your brush to be textured, under the brushes menu, and mess around with the various patterns available to get a nice mottled look). Here, again, you will have to experiment with different greens, blends, and opacities.

Here's a sneak peak at a map I'm currently experimenting with showing the mountain techniques to give you some idea of what I mean.

[The_Colorless_Mage]

Ascension,

First: Those mountains look FANTASTIC.

Second, thank you again for the advice. If you discover anything to make them appear "pointier", I'd certainly appreciate knowing about it.

As far as your tip on "frigid barrenness" goes, are you saying to apply those changes to the base layer AFTER the map's finished or during the step in which we've created it?

TCM


P.S.: After I posted this, I finished the second iteration of my map. I'm much happier with the mountains now and found a way to help my map look more "frigid" (via altering the gradient map of the landmass), but I've run into a different problem altogether. While all the differentiation during the "cloud creation" portion of my map-making helped my mountains, it's really made my oceans look...well, bad. Attached are two pictures depicting issues I've run into that I hope you can help me with:



I realize those are low-rez captures (I was trying to be conscious of server load), but in Ex1, you can see all the "noise" in the water, preventing it from having a smooth appearance. Instead, it looks very mottled--and is MUCH worse when seen from a zoomed out view. In Ex2, you can see that there is a noticeable bevel in the middle of a lake...and it appears to be RAISED, not sunken. Is there a way for me to easily take care of both problems?

TCM

[Ascension]

The bevel problem is pretty much something I cause and will do so forever - it's where the light source is situated. In my maps I put the sun in the lower right as if dawn in the east. Most people assume a top left light source which is opposite of what I do. Top left light makes it look raised while bottom right make it looks sunken. So you can just move the light source on the bevel/emboss window. As to the ocean, just airbrush in some more darker colors to smooth things out or do like I do and just put a layer of solid color over the unimportant parts. Most people don't really care too much about the bathymetry except near coasts.

[The_Colorless_Mage]

Ascension,

I see! Well, it's all good. After doing some extensive playing around with the map, I was able to ameliorate both the color issues and the too-prominent bevel. I appreciate all of your help, nonetheless!

Right now, I'm moving on to your volcano tutorial. I mean, hey--what would an Iceland-like map be without some volcanic activity, no?


TCM

[Ascension]

That tut is a lil confusing so you might need lots of experimenting with it. Someday I'll rewrite it to fix it but think of it as more a general idea than actual step by step.

[The_Colorless_Mage]

Ascension,

If I have any problems with it, I'll let you know! I think I should be okay, though. I was lucky enough to have one of my mountains appear with a very prominent (and obvious) crater on its peak. As I scan over your tutorial, it seems to me that having that is half the battle.

TCM

[SSJPabs]

Did you try the pdf? I actually made it on Open Office (free) so that would work as well. I'm not spending oodles of cash on MS Office and I deleted Works when I fired up the pc for the first time.

I used to use open office, but I found it ran much more clunky and had fewer options than Works, and so after a few years, I removed it recently. The images in your tutorial didn't work for me even when I used open office to view it. The PDF however works.

Thanks for your helpful response.

[ShadowBlade]

Hey there, new to the Guild!

This is a fantastic tutorial, and after some effort and struggling with the continental shelves a bit, I'm almost done. However, I've run into a problem now that I want to add that thin black stroke around the Land layer. Instead of drawing said stroke properly, the effect is instead placing what looks more like a color overlay over the ocean (i.e. what's outside the layer). I have no idea why this is happening, though I realize missing a single step along the lengthy process can bring nefarious consequences later on... I must've done something wrong along the way.