sketch style worldmap in photoshop cs - cartographers' guild · sketch style worldmap in...

07.11 Moe for www.cartographersguild.com

Sketch Style Worldmap in Photoshop CS

This tutorial describes how to create a minimalistic sketch

style map in Photoshop in quite a short time. Results can be

used as simple maps or as an excellent basis for further

cartography.


Content 1. Setting up the canvas ...................................................................................................................... 3

2. Adding “landmass”-layer ................................................................................................................. 3

3. Creating the basic ground shape ..................................................................................................... 3

4. Inverting the colours ....................................................................................................................... 4

5. Adding some style to our coastline ................................................................................................. 4

6. Grouping the content ...................................................................................................................... 6

7. Creating the waves .......................................................................................................................... 6

8. Manipulating the Levels .................................................................................................................. 7

9. Enhancing the coastline .................................................................................................................. 8

10. Rivers, borders, streets and more ............................................................................................. 10


1. Setting up the canvas At first set up a new document. In the example the measurements I chose are 1500px x 1000px. You

may use a larger canvas as well, but be aware that the tutorial always refers to the size above and

therefore you may need to adjust some values in order to reach a proper look.

2. Adding “landmass”-layer Add a new empty layer. Call it “landmass”. This is the layer we work on. We will not touch the

background layer.

3. Creating the basic ground shape In Order to get a coastline which fits the style of the map we use the brush (attached) and some

changes within the settings. Use the values shown in the pictures.

Done so, draw your landmass as you want it to

be. I recommend to vary the brushes’ size adding

details and fill in some smaller islands.

This brush preset was especially made for this

tutorial but of course you can use your own brushes. Changing the brushes, or enabling Dual Brush

gives you interesting results and may change the style of the coastline completely.


The following methods will surely work with a lot of shapes and different coastlines. Feel free to do

your own style. I’d be glad to see some weird experiments on different brushes.

4. Inverting the colours After you drew the land go to image -> adjustments -> hue/saturation and push the lightness up to

the max.

At first your carefully drawn coastline will vanish. But be assured it will get back soon.

5. Adding some style to our coastline Select your landmass layer and go to the layer styles. Enable the following styles (If you picked

different measurements at the beginning you will need to adjust here. Try to use your intuition or the

sample pictures as an orientation).


Your coastline should now look similar to this. If not, try to adjust the

layer style in order to reach a result close to this one. The example

you can see is a 100% screenshot.

The bevel and emboss effect combined with the stroke is the main characteristic of this style. It

somehow looks like an inked sketch, but is none of course.


6. Grouping the content I prefer to work with groups. They simply help me to keep the overview even if there are dozens of

layers. So we set up two groups now. One, we name “landmass” and the other “sea”. I guess it’s no

big deal for you to figure out into which group the layer “landmass” belongs.

Into the “sea” group we add a duplication of

the landmass layer and call it “waves”. We

delete the layer styles of “waves” excluding

the black stroke of 2px.

Then we create a new empty layer

underneath the “waves”.

After this, we merge the empty layer with

the “waves”. This has some kind of rasterize

effect to the layer styles.

Now we chose the wand tool and select the white landmass inside the “waves” layer.

By pressing “delete” we remove the white colour. The rasterized stroke remains.

7. Creating the waves We will now set up the waves which imitate the sketch style. It is obvious that they are

not handmade, but for me they fit perfect in the overall look. In this step we will only

work within the “sea” group.

a. Select your “waves” layer. go to filters -> blur -> motion blur / add the values which

can be found in picture 1

b. Select your “waves” layer. go to filters -> sketch -> graphic pen / add the values

which can be found in picture 2

c. Select your “waves” layer. go to filters -> blur -> motion blur / add the values which

can be found in picture 3

Every time I use this style I have to move to triggers a little bit to get a good result. Lots of it depends

on your coastlines shape. And therefore the values above are somehow example ones. According to

the technique we used, you may say the more fractal your coastline is the better the waves.


8. Manipulating the Levels To fit the blury waves into the style we have to add two level adjustment layers.

Arrange them as in the following picture.

Use the values in the examples. The boxes I’ve marked with red are those to be alternated if the

result does not satisfy you. Again your coastline has a major influence on how to choose the values.

This is adjustment layer Level 1, set on top

of Level 2

As you can see, here I changed the output

level to 240. This separates your sea from

the landmass by giving a greyish tone.


This is adjustment layer Level 2, placed

under Level 1

9. Enhancing the coastline To free our coastline from the waves we duplicate the layer landmass (I called it “outlines”). We will

enforce the sketchy look. Move this copy underneath the “landmass” layer.

Use the empty layer combined with the merge to “rasterize” the layer style again. Then add a white

stroke (or, if you changed the output level in step 8, chose your sea color) of 2px (depends on your

document size).


Again we will use an empty layer to rasterize. Now we add a bevel and emboss style using the

following values (correct to work with other sizes or different coastline style).

My example now looks like this. It’s our final version talking about the

coastline, the sea and the waves themselves. Your result will differ if you

chose an alternative way of creating this.


10. Rivers, borders, streets and more To draw the rivers we simply create a new layer on top of all. We choose the pencil tool to keep our

100% contrast style and draw the rivers with a soft and round brush and a strength of 4px (change

strength to draw thinner and thicker lines).

The borders need a little setup within the

brush presets.


To draw the streets start with a smaller brush size when entering the presets. The way of setting

them up is quite similar so I won’t explain them. Find some street style you like!

To add cities choose the pencil with a bigger size and place some dots. After that you may add names

to your cities. I prefer a handwritten font and add a white stroke to it to overlap the drawing.

After a short while you will face a good looking minimalistic map as it might be found in front of a

novel.

Of course you can add more detail as mountain ridges, forests, colours or what ever. There are

manifold ways to built upon that tutorial.

I’d appreciate every kind of criticism and it would be fantastic if you’d like this tutorial. For any

questions, recommendations or improvements feel free to contact me under

[email protected] or via www.cartographersguild.com.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.cartographersguild.com/

sketch style worldmap in photoshop cs - cartographers' guild · sketch style worldmap in...

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