[Award Winner] Create a non-destructive editable map in Photoshop

Thanks for an amazing tutorial! Once the basic principle is down, the whole process becomes very intuitive and flexible, it's great.

If you don't have access to the photoshop filters, I found it easiest to create a greyscale rippled / ocean rippled / blurred area, push it to 100% contrast and then select the white or black part - this gives you a bit of flexibility with where the edges of things are as well.

For the rivers, if you use a path with "simulate pressure" and make the path much longer than necessary you end up with a nice tapering effect (for those of us without a tablet).

Edit: A couple more variations - using clouds and an overlay colour has worked better for me than using a texture for the final 'binding' layer

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/963/mapofdoom.th.jpg
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8435/mapbase06b.th.jpg
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/9...pbase07.th.jpg

Those look a lot better than anything I could have done. They are amazing. You should append your method to the tutorial so others can follow. Lovely work manikin!

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Originally Posted by ravells

Are you using the download from here: http://www.geocities.com/why2kspace/

That one has the jiggle filter enabled.

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Geocities apparently shut down so the link no longer works :/

Anyways, here's what I got from following your tutorial and applying a few techniques from a previous one as well as my own. This site is truly awesome... I can't wait to surprise my RP groups with the maps I'll be doing up :)

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Originally Posted by xvcrimsajadevx

Geocities apparently shut down so the link no longer works :/

Anyways, here's what I got from following your tutorial and applying a few techniques from a previous one as well as my own. This site is truly awesome... I can't wait to surprise my RP groups with the maps I'll be doing up :)

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That is an excellent start. You should start a WIP thread and show us your progress as you bring it to completion.


-IG

Rats, I had a look around to see whether the free download of the eyecandy filters was hosted somewhere else, but drew a blank. You can still use the ocean ripple method though as a work around. I love the map - but the coastline looks a little 'soft' to me - although that may be intentional. Have a look at craggle's tutorial on using smart objects in photoshop - it works really well with this tutorial.

As IG said, you should start a separate WIP thread for your map where it will get more exposure and comments.

Great work and keep going!

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Originally Posted by ravells

Rats, I had a look around to see whether the free download of the eyecandy filters was hosted somewhere else

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First link here. Haven't tested it to make sure it isn't a nasty virus packed trojan, however, so practice safe downloading.

-Rob A>

Brilliant, thanks Rob!

I have downloaded the tutorial and am trying to work my way through it, but here are some of the issues that I am running into:

1) The screenshots of the dialog boxes are blurry, so it is hard to tell what settings are used to create the desired effect.
2) There is no example of the completed sea layer, so I have no idea what I am supposed to be seeing. I don't feel like I can progress farther in the tutorial until I know if I'm doing it properly.
3) In my particular case, I cannot find an older copy of EyeCandy for Mac OS X, and the current version does not appear to have the jiggle filter anymore (unless it's disabled in the trial version). Maybe an alternate set of instructions using the ripple filters that were suggested would be a good idea?

If the same technique is used at each step of the process (which I assume is something like "use the bottom layer of your group to specify the color, use the middle layer to mask the shape to be used, and use the top layer to set the texture or apply a filter to the edge of the shape") then maybe having one clear, step-by-step example at the beginning of the tutorial would be a good idea; later sections can embellish on the technique (like using the contour filter to create an edge around the continent, etc.)

I would be happy to help write out such a step-by-step tutorial if I can get more detailed instructions.

LOL, glad you decided to edit to make the tone a little nicer :). Frankly I've never been able to be nasty about people who educate / give away stuff for free, but that's just me :)

Let me take a look again at the tut (it's a while since I wrote it) and I'll come back to you.

If you get the detailed instructions, then you wouldn't have to write out the tutorial since it would have been done for you, but thanks for the offer! :)

Well, I wasn't being intentionally rude, but a couple of the comments I made could have been construed as such. :)

I guess what I meant by writing up the instructions was, I would be willing to do the appropriate screenshotting for an updated version, to make it clearer.

I would appreciate any suggestions or corrections you can offer; I tried to plow on through as best I could, but I don't know if my difficulties are because of the instructions, or because of my meager Photoshop skills...

EDIT: I started a WIP thread to detail what it is I'm trying to do.