And then the obvious strikes me; Google ..... Earth. Duh!

Looking at the Eastern USA coastline, you really can't see any specific cities until you zoom in real close. From orbit, it is all sort of a mishmash of brown and gray. Interesting and educational to look at.

One thing that I really want to avoid is getting caught up in hyper-realism. Google maps is technically very accurate, but dang the continents look boring. This and other maps I have been/will be working on are actually going to be used in a little project I am working on. I want them to be pretty as much as functional. Pretty actually is going to take the lead, as most cities are going to be designated with a little pointer indicating the name of the city.

I do need to decrease the greens a bit. That would probably help out a lot. I'll post an update soon.