Telperion & Taramir - First Attempt w/GIMP

[jfrazierjr]

Any ideas (or point me to a tutorial if possible) on what I can do to fix the rivers? I'd much prefer that they "cut through" the forest instead of "lay on top".

That's a fairly easy fix as long as you have the rivers on their own layer. Just like with the mountain and forest masks you made earlier, you make a river mask, so whatever layers you add the mask to will "cut" out for the rivers. For maximum flexibility in the future create both a mask AND a direct layer (which you will hide). You can do this easily by selecting your rivers, create a new layer, fill "not" river with black, and river with white, then save as mask. You now have a B/W layer and a mask version of the same. The reason to make it a separate layer in addition to just a mask is so if you decide to add any effects such as a bevel or something like that, you can regenerate the mask from the layer and then apply the new mask where ever the old one was(assuming you had not merged down the layer mask previously.

Joe