My first sandbox map - I have questions

[swiss]

I made this mostly following a youtube tutorial with the goal of getting familiar with some basic techniques like layers, brushes, etc. which I had no experience with previously. So the goal of this map is not a finished product map, it's just skill building. And I kept a list of questions that arose that I would appreciate any help with:

1) When the mountains (or any brush really) overlap they create a darker line. Is there any good way to avoid that besides just carefully not overlapping?

2) How to blend rivers into the mountains and get them to disappear. Is it just a matter of zooming in and touching up?

3) The brushes for mountains, forests, and cities I used (sketchy_cartography_brushes_by_starraven-d3a1hra) don't show up that well on my map. Part of that is the coloring, but it's also like they need to be bolded or something. Also if I increase the size, they do not scale. They just get grainy. I feel like I don't know what I don't know with something here...help me out

4) If you're wondering what that ugly green square is in the bottom left...that's a texture I imported but after watching 3 tutorials that obviously were not for exactly what I'm trying to do, I can't figure it out. Basically I want that green square to be how my land looks, but for it to only cover the land. I want it to replace the light green. I keep looking for an 'Import Texture' function in Elements but the best I could do is just import this as another layer, which obviously is short of what I want. So how do I do that?

5) When I painted my mountain brush, it was black. Is there any easy way to globally change the color of the mountains, or do I need to delete and re-draw?

6) I have a strong feeling of 'I don't know what I don't know' at this stage, so if something catches you eye that you'd think I'd benefit from let me know.



My ultimate goal is to get to something like these, although it feels like a long way away:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...light=Mydresia
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ghlight=aldora
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...294#post222294



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This list below are the steps I used in Photoshop elements. This is not meant as a tutorial for anyone, it's just an audit of my steps so if someone thinks 'wait, what did this guy do exactly?', this is what I did exactly. Very open to feedback on these steps, i.e. "I see what you were going for but there's a better way to do that step", or "you should add a step inbetween these steps to accomplish _____", etc.

Order of Operations:

--- LAND AND SEA----

Open new file and set dimensions based on standard shapes and use of map. A3? A9? Dunno

Name first layer 'Background'.

Create new layer and name it 'Ocean' and color it blue

Create new layer and name it 'Land' and outline the land. Use the pencil tool, not the Brush tool because you need hard edges. Fill in land masses

Click to 'Land' layer. [Top menu] Layer > Layer Style > Style Settings > Bevel (size 9?) and Stroke 1 (for an outline?)

Eraser tool (experimenting with Brush and Pencil versions. Pencil is hard-edged. Make coastlines natural

--- MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS ----

Create a new layer and name it 'Mountains'

Click Brush tool and select mountains and paste them on.

Use the erase tool to create rivers and lakes


--- FORESTS AND CITIES AND PATHS ----

Create a new layer and name it 'Forests'

Click Brush tool and select forests and paste them on

Click Brush tool and select cities and paste them on

Dotted lines. Brush tool. Hard Round 3. Brush Settings. Spacing 192%

--- HIGHLIGHTING COASTS ----

Land or Sea layer and [Top menu] Layer > Layer Style > Style Settings, add Inner and Outer Glow. You can change the color as well. I made it light blue

--- TEXT ----

Click the text tool and add text. You can add shadows, etc.

[Mouse]

My goodness! What a lot of work you've already done

I'm not really going to be very much use, I'm afraid, because of my total lack of experience with anything PS, but from the detail of your map can I suggest that you make your files much larger? (That means a lower A number) A3 seems to be a common size, since A3 printers aren't that uncommon these days if you want to be able to print your maps out.

With more pixels to play with you will get smoother lines, and be able to add a lot more detail.

Using a very slightly fuzzy edged brush (not too much!) will also help to prevent the pixilation I can see going on with your coast outline.

I'm sorry to not be much help!

[swiss]

> can I suggest that you make your files much larger?

Can you tell me more about this? I made the file size 4x3 inches, 300 PPI. I made it small in terms of area because it was just a sandbox. If I made a real map, it'd be much larger. So are you saying I should make the file area bigger in terms of inches, or are you talking about how I uploaded the image to this forum (like did I upload a low resolution file or something)? If the latter, how do I toggle that?

[Mouse]

The map is fine as uploaded. No. I was trying to help you avoid the pixilation thing with the coastline.

If you look carefully at the map you can see that the coastline is made up of millions of tiny black squares.

If you were to make your sandbox at least 4 x larger than it is (or increase the ppi to that equivalent - either way, doesn't matter which), then you would be drawing the same map in a much larger area. That would mean that instead of having to use a hard edged 1-2 px brush to do the coastline you could do it with a 4-5 px brush (or even larger) - a brush with a very slightly fuzzy edge on it.

Try just drawing a test squiggly line with a slightly bigger brush with a slightly fuzzy edge (using it at twice the width of the sharp edged line you drew your coastline with) and then zooming out to 50%, and hopefully you will see that the fuzzy edge kind of disappears and the line looks much better than the hard edged lines at 100%.

[Azélor]

1) When the mountains (or any brush really) overlap they create a darker line. Is there any good way to avoid that besides just carefully not overlapping?

There aren't good solutions that I am aware. The best thing to do would be:

You could place them manually by duplicating a layer containing only one mountain.
You could use opaque colours with no transparency, but you still need to place them carefully.

2) How to blend rivers into the mountains and get them to disappear. Is it just a matter of zooming in and touching up?

The rivers should (usually) get larger gradually has he moves away from the starting point. How large you make the river is a matter of personal preferences since most rivers are too small to be depicted accurately (depending on the scale of the map).
Personally, I would let more space between the mountains and the start of the rivers.

3) The brushes for mountains, forests, and cities I used (sketchy_cartography_brushes_by_starraven-d3a1hra) don't show up that well on my map. Part of that is the coloring, but it's also like they need to be bolded or something. Also if I increase the size, they do not scale. They just get grainy. I feel like I don't know what I don't know with something here...help me out

You can increase the size of a brush but it will become blurry because it's made of pixels. IF you increase the size, the program has to figure out what to put in the gaps and he simply stretch what is already there.

5) When I painted my mountain brush, it was black. Is there any easy way to globally change the color of the mountains, or do I need to delete and re-draw?

There are at least two solutions for this:
You can do it manually using the brush or pen tool. On the right side, in the layer window, close to the top of the window you have some sort of checkboard square. It locks transparent pixels, so you can only modify what is already on the layer.
The other solution is to right click on the layer, go to option something (it should be one of the top), click on the colour overlay box, pick the colour you want.

Use the erase tool to create rivers and lakes

Have you done this directly on the land layer? It is usually better to use a mask layer and to temporary or permanently hide the land layer instead of deleting it.

[swiss]

Mouse - Ah, got it. I agree. That should be an easy fix when I move to a larger map

Azelor - Going to digest this all when I have time later, thank you. On a quick skim though for the last one, yes I deleted the land directly per the tutorial. I've heard of mask layers but don't yet know what they are or what they can do. I'll have to do a tutorial on those

[Mouse]

I have no idea if masks are the same in PS as they are in GIMP, but they are the most incredibly useful 'tool in the box'. Nowadays I never use the eraser tool at all if I can use a layer mask instead. So its well worth the time getting to grips with them from the start.

[Falconius]

1) When the mountains (or any brush really) overlap they create a darker line. Is there any good way to avoid that besides just carefully not overlapping?

I'm with Mouse. Layer masks would help with this issue. I don't use PS so I don't know the specifics of that program.

[swiss]

So I did a tutorial on layer masks but I did not understand why they are useful for mapmaking. I tested it out on my map and it seemed to have the same effect as the eraser tool, with the difference being it was just being masked and the land was still there on the original layer. But so what? Why would I want to keep that land? If I erased something I didn't want I could just undo it right? I'm probably missing something

[Mouse]

Think of a situation where you are adding lots of forest or ocean to your map (not all maps are drawn using the same method you have initially practiced), and these two layers are solid layers of a seamless texture you took some trouble to set up.

If you use the eraser tool to erase all the bits you don't want, but then a week later you decide to adjust the coastline to make room for a city, or make a forest a bit bigger, you would have to regenerate the layer in question. You will probably still have the same texture to hand, but can you remember exactly what minor adjustments you made to the colour, tone and hue... or to the contrast, colour curves, or scale of the filled sheet before you were happy with the way it looked?

The chances are that unless you have written accurate moment by moment notes about every tiny adjustment the new forest or ocean layer will never really match the old one and look just a bit odd.

If you have used a layer mask to hide or reveal what you want on both those layers, however, its just a simple case of painting a dab of white grey or black on the mask, and all is well.

Trust me - masks cut hours and hours of frustration out of map making