Maps, Photoshop, and You
Maps, Photoshop, and You
Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Department of Creativity / Maps, Photoshop, and You / Maps, Photoshop, and You

? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
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, Kelatetía, Dis
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For featuring Şerau Teršelainja on Anthologica's front page, since Nessari didn't have a photogenic picture already on hand, I decided to whip up a version of her available map in Photoshop that I thought would look decent. (Because a meddlesome dictator is a good dictator, right?) It's a relatively simple formula that I think should be easy for anyone to apply. You can see the whole map here:

RoughMap.jpg

(This was produced from Nessari's original.)

And get the PSD for it here. Critically, this works with any single-colour shape with a transparent background, even if the shape has a hard, un-antialiased edge and has been drawn in MS Paint. A few tips for inserting your own landmass:

1. You can move layer styles from one layer to another simply by dragging them.
2. You'll need three copies of your layer, including one that has been inverted to contain only the ocean around it. You can make this third copy by ctrl-clicking on the thumbnail (to select its opacity mask), pressing shift-ctrl-I (to invert the selection), and then using the flood fill tool (press G or click on the paint bucket) to fill it in.

This was a really quick-and-dirty approach to making a map, but it produced adequate effects for the occasion, so I hope it'll be useful as a starting point for anyone wanting to make their own simulated parchments. Happy cartographing! Feel free to share other map-making tips in this thread.