Make your maps using
http://www.twstats.com. This is by far the fastest and most flexible site to use. Note that I never add more than 15 colours (tribes) to one map generation, because using more makes it extremely difficult to pick out the correct colours. Set it to high zoom for a more accurate map. You'll need to centre the map in various spots to get the whole thing (I usually take 4 snapshots per 15 tribes - one for each corner of the map). Make a note of which tribe are in which colours, or you'll probably have to do it over again when you realise you've forgotten which is which.
If you're doing more than 15 tribes, you'll need to generate another map with the same settings, then overlay this later. Don't forget to tick the grid option.
NOW, IN PHOTOSHOP: 1) Open your map sections. You'll get an embedded profile mismatch. Select "discard" for every image.
Then with one of your map sections, do
IMAGE > CANVAS SIZE In the canvas resize panel, anchor your image to the corner it belongs in, and expand your canvas roughly so it can contain the entire map.
2) Open your other sections of the map, and using the pointer tool, click and drag each section on to your big canvas, lining up the images to the correct position (use the grid as a guide).
You can now get rid of all the map pieces and work on one canvas. Your layers panel will look something like this:
3) LAYER >MERGE DOWN (or CTRL + E) to get all your map pieces on to the background layer. Then use the rectangular marquee tool to select the entire map, excluding the unused bits of canvas, and do
IMAGE > CROP . You now have a map! But it needs sprucing up a bit
Here's how it looks so far (at 25%)
4) LAYER > NEW > LAYER (or CTRL + SHIFT + N) to make a new layer. Make 15 of these, or 1 for each tribe. Then in your layers panel, click the little arrow, and select "
NEW LAYER SET". Name this "Tribes - done". Rename each of your layers to the names of the tribes you will be featuring. Click the eye icon beside the "tribes - done" layer set. This makes it invisible, so anything you put in there will be stored safely out of the way.
5) Using the EYEDROPPER tool, select the colour of the first tribe. Then do
SELECT > COLOR RANGE. Select "sampled colors" at fuzziness 4. Then hit OK. You should now see loads of "marching ants" around the tribe colour you selected.
SELECT > MODIFY >EXPAND. Expand by 1 px.
SELECT > MODIFY > SMOOTH. Smooth by 1px.
6) Now, with the correct tribe layer selected, choose the gradient tool, and make a gradient. Play about with this till you figure out what you like best. Don't make the change in gradient too strong though, just a small variation is enough to remove the "flat" look that solid colour gives.
Then, click and drag your mouse across the selected area, and release.
SELECT > DESELECT (or CTRL + D) to see what you've just done.
7) Now we need to add an outline and a shadow. In your layers panel, double-click the layer and you'll get a "layer style" menu. We need to make a new style.
Click "drop shadow" and adjust this until it looks good.
Then click "stroke" and set this to 1px "outside", and make it black. Click the "new style" button and this adds your new style to the "style" option at the top, so you don't have to keep repeating the process (from now on you can just click "style" then choose the style you just created!).
Hit OK.
Here's what it should look like:
Now that tribe is done, so move the layer into you "tribes - done" layer set. Don't worry that it's disappeared, if you want to see it, just hit the eye icon beside the layer set. But it's better that it's out of the way while you work on the rest.
Repeat steps 5-7 with every layer until you've done every tribe in a different colour.
Once you've done that, flip the eye back on and you should have something like this:
9) Time to do the "other villages" now.
Make a new layer, above the background but below the layer set. Same again, eyedropper for the red villages, then
SELECT > COLOR RANGE. This time don't expand, just
SELECT > MODIFY > SMOOTH by 1px.
Set your foreground colour to
91R 92G 37B (RGB values), then
EDIT > FILL, using the foreground colour.
Set your foreground colour to
55R 92G 37B then
EDIT > STROKE. 1 px, outside. Deselect.
Double-click the layer and add a drop shadow at about 30% opacity. Don't worry if it looks odd... we haven't done the background yet.
10) Time to do that now. Make a new layer directly above the background layer. Set your foreground colour to
71R 116G 49B. Then do
EDIT > FILL, using foregound colour. You now have something like this:
Now, make everything you've done so far invisible, except for the background that contains the original map.
11) Make a new layer on top of every other layer. Working on this layer, using the pen tool, do a click at the top of one of the vertical grid lines, and a click at the bottom. Use CTRL and click to adjust the points to make them perfect.
Select your pencil tool, and set it to 1px and pick a nice light green.
In your paths panel, select "
Stroke path" Then deselect the path and you'll have a grid line. You can now either repeat this, or just "duplicate layer" then move it with the pointer into the correct position.
Once you have all the grid lines, merge them down into one layer, and call it "grid". Set this to between 30 and 50% opacity, depending on what you like
12) IMAGE > IMAGE SIZE. With "constrain proportions" ticked, scale your map down to a presentable size. Now it' all looks fuzzy!
To fix the fuzziness, go through each layer in turn and do
FILTER > SHARPEN > SHARPEN MORE. 13) Now comes the tricky bit. You have great-looking map, but some tribes overlap each other heavily. How to fix this? You have to do it by hand. Two possible ways:
* Right-click one of your lower layers in the layer panel, and select "
duplicate". Then drag this up to the top. Now this overlaps the one below it, but it's fine. Using your lasso tool on this new layer, trace sections where the other tribe is more strongly represented and then backspace to erase these from the top layer (your bottom original will still be intact). Repeat this process until all your tribes have a fair representation.
* Duplicate a layer, place it on top, and lower the opacity. This is the only way to get a 100% accurate representation, but can look very messy. It depends what you're after to which method you should use. For a super accurate map, use opacity, for a graphical eye-pleaser, use solid colour and do the work by hand.
14) Once you've finished fiddling with the detail, save it, then
LAYER > FLATTEN IMAGE. Always save before you flatten, then save under a different filename after flattening, in case you need to go back to the layered version to make corrections.
15) Add text, using opacity and stroke techniques you've just learned (having the continent numbers layer set to "screen" looks great), and hey presto, a finished map!
