Techniques for a relief map

[Kellerica]

I've often found that trying to replicate someone else's look exactly is often a futile attempt, or at least for me it always has been. I think you are on the right track with the Bewel & Emboss effect, as it is one of the most effective ways of making a relief thing on Photoshop.

Check out this tutorial by Kalvinlyle as well. I know it's not the look you want exactly, but this type of hightmap is relatively easy to make and it could give you some stuff of your own that you could try patching together, and the way of using the Lighting Effects to get a relief looking thing is a very useful trick.

One thing I've also done, is I've first created a fake hightmap with the Clouds/Difference Clouds filter, or with the Kalvinlyle technique mentioned above; then I've cut little bits of it, airbrushed the edges off, and created custom brushes of the result. See the attachement to get a sense of what I mean. These kind brushes are best used on layer mask at a 20-30 % Opacity and in a back-and-forth kind of motion, where you first raise the ground up and then go back to black and lower parts of the area you just raised in order to create the more realistic edges you want.



If you want the exact look of the example, I'm afraid I can't give you more advice than to draw it by hand...

Draw the rivers, invert, and use the (stroke/gradient/shape burst) layer effect to get mountains. Repeat as required to get different pointiness for the mountains.

Waldronate, you lose me on the Shape burst and now I'm really curious, is there any way you could elaborate a bit?