Thread: Athenya, City of Hope and New Beginnings

You should add a border, it doesn't have to be complex, even a simple one adds a little more depth and character to your map. I have an easy wooden border method if you're interested. And if you have a border you can have some more space to put the compass rose and title in the corners.

-D-

I think I would give the compass rose a drop shadow. It might fit in better with the rest of the labels.

@lonewanderer: any help is appreciated

@dusk: they should be drop shadowed. maybe I didnt set them the same way.
It was like 3am when I did this

Okay, i my border is simple, I just need to know two things.

1) Are you doing this in photoshop.

2) What are the dimensions of your map?

-D-

Photoshop.
2000x2000 pixels
But Ill probably make the canvas larger to make room for the border since I dont want it covering anything

Awesome, my method involves making the canvas bigger anyway. Okay the method is below and quite simple.

Step 1) Expand your canvas height and width by 100 pixels, this will give you a border 50 pixels thick.

Step 2) Place a new layer underneath all of your other layers and fill it with black, sometimes there is a small gap between the border and the edge of the map and this new layer will fill it up so you don't get a white line which can be annoying.

Step 3) Create a new layer above all other layers and name it "border".

Step 4) Select the border layer and ctrl-click the black layer we placed before, decrease the selection by 50 and select inverse, fill the selection with a brown colour, i use 90 red - 70 green - 30 blue but it's up to you.

Step 5) Apply the following layer styles

- Inner Shadow: Default setting
- Pattern Overlay: I actually use the wood pattern that came with Ascension's Photoshop Town tutorial, you can find it in the tutorial section. Set the scale to 50 and the mode to overlay. He calls it surface_08b in his attachment "current patterns"
- Stroke: Size 2, colour black and opacity 75%
- Bevel and Emboss: Inner bevel, Chisel Hard, Size 25, Highlight mode (mode multiply, opacity 50%, colour ffe05a), Shadow mode (mode multiply, opacity 50%, colour black) and a contour at range 50.

Done, simple no? Feel free to experiment as you wish. Hope this helps.

-D-

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...lly-Finished-D
Finiiished