Holy panooly
31-08-2004, 15:51
This is a fairly simple tutorial how to create good maps who are easy to navigate, stylish and good to look at. All you need is photoshop and fantasy.
Examples
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/fruityloops/ofaolains.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/fruityloops/map1.gif
Please do not link directly. This is eating away bandwidth.
The basics
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/fruityloops/bar.gif
This is the photoshop toolbar. I'm starting at the top from left to right.
1. Marquee tool. Select an area on the canvas (your image) to select something. Works on only 1 layer. Click and hold the icon and you can select a circular marquee too.
2. Move too. Select it and specify a layer to work on. When you click your mouse button you can move things over the canvas to another location. If you do not select a certain object with the marquee tool or the magical wand (see #4) the whole layer will be moved.
3. Lasso, Polygonal Lasso and Magnetic Lasso tools. These are also selection tools but here you can decide how the selection looks like. The lasso is a freehand tool, the polygonal lasso needs points and then the selection like moves on the magnetic lasso achors itself on points on your images - borders and colour changes.
4. Magic wand. Select a layer and click a certain area of one color. This is will become selected.
Note: the color range feature Select > Color Range works many times better than the magic wand. Select a color with the eyedropper tool in the color range and that particular color will be selected.
5. Crop tool. Cuts away all parts of the canvas outside the selection. The canvas size Image > Canvas Size feature works better but is more difficult to use effectively. Just mess around a bit and you'll get the hang of it.
6. Slice tool. This is for webgraphics and thus not needed.
7. Healing Brush. Never used it for mapmaking.
8. Brush tool. This is the most important tool in mapmaking. With this you draw the land, forest, trees... You name it. Click and hold the icon and you can draw lines with the pencil tool. You can change brushes by looking for a tipscale which indicates the brush size. Click the arrow pointing down.
You have more choice but when you click the small arrow pointing to the right you now see a menu. There you'll see all the standard photoshop brushsets. When you want to reset the brushes look above the sets and click 'reset brushes'. Works on only one layer.
9. Stamp tool. Never used it for mapmaking.
10. History Art Brush. Never used it for mapmaking.
11. Eraser tool. Works exactly same as the brush but instead of adding to the canvas it removes what you've made. Works on only one layer. You can also change the type of eraser the same way as changing brush.
12. Paintbucket. Fills a whole layer or a selection with a pattern or a color. To change to pattern go the same bar where you change brushes and look for 'Fill: Foreground', click the small arrow and select pattern. Next to that you can select the pattern.
13. Blur/Sharpen/Smudge tool. Click and hold to see all tools. Blur tool blurs like a brush, Sharpen tool sharpens like a brush and the smudge tool makes a big mess of everything.
14. Dodge/Burn/Sponge tool. Click and hold to see all tools. Dodge makes the color lighter, burn makes the color darker and the sponge makes the color also lighter but in a diffirent way.
15. Path selection tool. Never used it.
16. Type tool. Select an area on your canvas and you can type whatever you want. A special layer for your text is created and you cannot work on that layer with a brush. To convert it to a normal layer select the text layer you want to see changed, Layer > Rasterize > Type and done. Rasterized layers cannot be changed back. To edit your text select the text layer and click on the T in the layer menu. Then you can edit your writings.
Note: rasterized type layers cannot be changed with the type tool.
17. Pen tool. If you like vector graphics, try this out. I never used it.
18. Shape tool. Create shapes with this. Click and hold to see other shapes you can select.
19. Notes. You add a new entry here to remind you later of something.
20. Eyedropper tool. Click a color and its selected in your color palette.
21. Hand tool. I have no clue what this is for.
22. Zoom tool. Zoom in or out. To change between zoom-in or zoom-out go to the same bar where you change your brushes and select the + or -.
That's it!
Examples
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/fruityloops/ofaolains.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/fruityloops/map1.gif
Please do not link directly. This is eating away bandwidth.
The basics
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/fruityloops/bar.gif
This is the photoshop toolbar. I'm starting at the top from left to right.
1. Marquee tool. Select an area on the canvas (your image) to select something. Works on only 1 layer. Click and hold the icon and you can select a circular marquee too.
2. Move too. Select it and specify a layer to work on. When you click your mouse button you can move things over the canvas to another location. If you do not select a certain object with the marquee tool or the magical wand (see #4) the whole layer will be moved.
3. Lasso, Polygonal Lasso and Magnetic Lasso tools. These are also selection tools but here you can decide how the selection looks like. The lasso is a freehand tool, the polygonal lasso needs points and then the selection like moves on the magnetic lasso achors itself on points on your images - borders and colour changes.
4. Magic wand. Select a layer and click a certain area of one color. This is will become selected.
Note: the color range feature Select > Color Range works many times better than the magic wand. Select a color with the eyedropper tool in the color range and that particular color will be selected.
5. Crop tool. Cuts away all parts of the canvas outside the selection. The canvas size Image > Canvas Size feature works better but is more difficult to use effectively. Just mess around a bit and you'll get the hang of it.
6. Slice tool. This is for webgraphics and thus not needed.
7. Healing Brush. Never used it for mapmaking.
8. Brush tool. This is the most important tool in mapmaking. With this you draw the land, forest, trees... You name it. Click and hold the icon and you can draw lines with the pencil tool. You can change brushes by looking for a tipscale which indicates the brush size. Click the arrow pointing down.
You have more choice but when you click the small arrow pointing to the right you now see a menu. There you'll see all the standard photoshop brushsets. When you want to reset the brushes look above the sets and click 'reset brushes'. Works on only one layer.
9. Stamp tool. Never used it for mapmaking.
10. History Art Brush. Never used it for mapmaking.
11. Eraser tool. Works exactly same as the brush but instead of adding to the canvas it removes what you've made. Works on only one layer. You can also change the type of eraser the same way as changing brush.
12. Paintbucket. Fills a whole layer or a selection with a pattern or a color. To change to pattern go the same bar where you change brushes and look for 'Fill: Foreground', click the small arrow and select pattern. Next to that you can select the pattern.
13. Blur/Sharpen/Smudge tool. Click and hold to see all tools. Blur tool blurs like a brush, Sharpen tool sharpens like a brush and the smudge tool makes a big mess of everything.
14. Dodge/Burn/Sponge tool. Click and hold to see all tools. Dodge makes the color lighter, burn makes the color darker and the sponge makes the color also lighter but in a diffirent way.
15. Path selection tool. Never used it.
16. Type tool. Select an area on your canvas and you can type whatever you want. A special layer for your text is created and you cannot work on that layer with a brush. To convert it to a normal layer select the text layer you want to see changed, Layer > Rasterize > Type and done. Rasterized layers cannot be changed back. To edit your text select the text layer and click on the T in the layer menu. Then you can edit your writings.
Note: rasterized type layers cannot be changed with the type tool.
17. Pen tool. If you like vector graphics, try this out. I never used it.
18. Shape tool. Create shapes with this. Click and hold to see other shapes you can select.
19. Notes. You add a new entry here to remind you later of something.
20. Eyedropper tool. Click a color and its selected in your color palette.
21. Hand tool. I have no clue what this is for.
22. Zoom tool. Zoom in or out. To change between zoom-in or zoom-out go to the same bar where you change your brushes and select the + or -.
That's it!