Was playing around in photoshop this morning and I stumbled across a really easy way to make a good looking fantasy map; as far as I know it only works in photoshop, but the principle should work in other programmes assuming they have similar options. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin...
First, open a blank document of whatever size you want your map to be. As I'm just doing a tutorial I'm going for a small one. Once you've done this, go to 'Filter', 'Render' and 'Clouds'.
You should get something like this...
Now, go to 'Image', 'Adjustments' and then 'Brightness and Contrast'.
When the box comes up, move the contrast all the way to maximum; your image will now look similar to this;
If you don't like the look of the coastlines, just start again from here- the cloud rendering is random so each time will be different. You can also alter the map to your needs at this point with the pencil tool- get rid of the islands you don't want and fiddle with the coastlines. You could just leave it here and colour the different areas to whatever you like with the fill tool; I'm going to add some outlines to the shape however.
When you get something you're happy with, so to 'select', and then 'color (sic ) range'. click on one of the white areas, and then 'ok'.
This will select all the white part of the image, which I'm going to make the sea. Go to 'Layer', then 'Duplicate Layer', and then press the delete key.
This will delete all the white area in the new layer. While you've got the land area selected, fill it to be the colour you want- make sure you get all the small islands. Now, press Shift+Ctrl+I. This will invert your selection. Click on the layers tab and choose the other layer.
Press Ctrl+A and then the delete key to wipe out everything in the layer, then fill with whatever colour you want the sea to be. By this stage, you have something similar to this;
Now, we're going to add outlining. Go to the layers tab, and double-click on the layer with the land. On the window that comes up, click on 'stroke', and then alter the variables so they're the same as in the screenshot.
The result should look like this;
And there you go! if you want to change the coastlines again, just use the pencil tool with the right colour- photoshop will automatically alter the outline to fit. When you're happy with that you can either flatten the image and then edit it like any other file, or create a new layer for the text and cities, etc.
First, open a blank document of whatever size you want your map to be. As I'm just doing a tutorial I'm going for a small one. Once you've done this, go to 'Filter', 'Render' and 'Clouds'.
You should get something like this...
Now, go to 'Image', 'Adjustments' and then 'Brightness and Contrast'.
When the box comes up, move the contrast all the way to maximum; your image will now look similar to this;
If you don't like the look of the coastlines, just start again from here- the cloud rendering is random so each time will be different. You can also alter the map to your needs at this point with the pencil tool- get rid of the islands you don't want and fiddle with the coastlines. You could just leave it here and colour the different areas to whatever you like with the fill tool; I'm going to add some outlines to the shape however.
When you get something you're happy with, so to 'select', and then 'color (sic ) range'. click on one of the white areas, and then 'ok'.
This will select all the white part of the image, which I'm going to make the sea. Go to 'Layer', then 'Duplicate Layer', and then press the delete key.
This will delete all the white area in the new layer. While you've got the land area selected, fill it to be the colour you want- make sure you get all the small islands. Now, press Shift+Ctrl+I. This will invert your selection. Click on the layers tab and choose the other layer.
Press Ctrl+A and then the delete key to wipe out everything in the layer, then fill with whatever colour you want the sea to be. By this stage, you have something similar to this;
Now, we're going to add outlining. Go to the layers tab, and double-click on the layer with the land. On the window that comes up, click on 'stroke', and then alter the variables so they're the same as in the screenshot.
The result should look like this;
And there you go! if you want to change the coastlines again, just use the pencil tool with the right colour- photoshop will automatically alter the outline to fit. When you're happy with that you can either flatten the image and then edit it like any other file, or create a new layer for the text and cities, etc.