[Award Winner] Making a continent in photoshop

Hello all, annoying ole me again.

I humbly submit, for your approval, my lil tutorial for making continents in Photoshop. Granted, my style is not for everyone but to each their own. This tutorial will probably change 1 or 2 more times before the year is out but here is where my current machinations stand. I'm not completely happy with my water areas but these are the areas that will be changed in months to come so if anyone comes up with a better way then I'm all ears, er eyes I guess since I'll be reading. I'd post a preview pic but the preview for this tut is already posted over in the regional/world mapping section (Untitled continent, WIP, reply #6) and I'm pretty much a novice at forums and such so I don't know how to link to it. The tutorial I have is a word document at 3.81 megs with pics. If you all want me to post the tutorial as a step by step guide within this thread instead of downloading the file then let me know.

At any rate, give it a read and see what you think and what sort of changes or modifications you use. Cheers.
Edit: Thought I'd just put up the pic that goes with this since I don't know how to link to the thumbnail.

Excellent, thanks Ascension! Hardly humble! An amazing amount of work which I'm sure the community will appreciate. (I've just renamed your thread title to make it a little more self explanatory).

Cheers

Ravs

It looks very interesting, Thanks!

Sigurd

As I've mentioned in other threads, Ascension's tutorial is one of the best in this forum. It was very inspiring! Very nice techniques! And since I am the guy who can't even draw a straight line with a ruler, I find this extremely useful! ;)

Great tutorial, I ran thru it at work and was quite pleased with the results. What I'd like to do is convert it to work in GIMP if possible, because I do not have Photshop at home (or the $$$ to buy it). However, I am not knowledgable enough in either application to convert every step in Photoshop to the appropriate step for GIMP.

I managed to kinda "fudge" my way thru the lighting effects, they are no means accurate, but I am stuck on step #42;

"Control-click on the Base layer, then Select > Inverse, then hit Delete, then Deselect."

What is the equivalent command in GIMP for the Control-Click???

Also, anybody know if there is a script and/or plugin that duplicates Photoshops gradiant editor, I find GIMPs difficult to use.

THanks in advance for your respnses/replies.

Don't know about the ctrl-click, but here is a gimp script I wrote to make a gradient from an image that I find easier to use than the native gradient editor.

-Rob A>

That's a good question...I haven't the slightest idea. I know one of the GIMPers will know though, or at least a work-around, but I'd assume it deals with the magic wand since we're working with a selection. The control-click (on the layer palette) loads the layer as a selection so a work-around might be to click on the base layer and magic wand the area that is not white, hide the base layer and go back to the previous layer then delete.

OK, thanks guys. I'll give those a whirl when I get a chance and see what happens.

Followed all the instructions up to where I'm supposed to select land and base, PS won't let me use inverse for some reason.

Does the base layer still have a black ocean and black lakes on a white land? If it does, you need to get rid of those via an earlier step where you select the black and delete it. Also, when I say to control-click on a layer, I don't mean in the work window, I mean in the layers window/tab/whatchamacallit thingy.