How do YOU create various resolutions of the same map?

[sam]

From roads and and streams point of view you have the same problem. If you render each layer individually then you could plot them with a single line. If scaling from a large bitmap then they will get small and blend out of the image at small scale. If all you have is the bitmap then its a tough call to preserve small features at small scales. If you have it as a map element database then your into GIS domain again. So I guess the important missing info is what kind of map do you have and is it just a bitmap ?

Thanks, Redrobes, you described my problem with scaling exactly. Gmap Cutter appears to be a bitmap slicer -- I believe it just
chops the bitmap into 256-pixel tiles; then scales it down by some factor and does the same thing, until the entire image is down to 1 tile or so.
The Gmap API is a nifty Javascript that serves and navigates up those tiles depending on clicks and keyboard actions.

My basic map is a bitmap, but I am working on a larger version with photoshop. Alas, I don't think I am up for buying another commercial
tool ATM, but I willing to use a different method or tools in the process of putting in more details.
My question is -- what tools should I be looking at? Some of my initial searches talk about Shapefiles for map features,
(then using these in some sort of map server)
but how do I create those shapefiles for, say, rivers and roads?
In theory, I understand the difference between vector and bitmap descriptions, but I have no experience with vector tools.

Or am I barking up the wrong tree?