8 replies to this topic

[Martin Gamache]

Here is a background for a map I'm currently working on. Shaded relief from Canadian 50m DEMs combined with landcover tinting from topo maps and satellite imagery and something new for me, sketched in details for the shading and on the glaciers to provide an organic feel as requested by my client. I've been experimenting with a Wacom tablt and this kind of detail for a few years but this is the first time I am actually using it for "real" work. I used a 1m ortho phto as a guide for someof the detailing so it is an artistic interpretation but based on detailed imagery. Printed size is 3" x2" at 1:100,000 so much smaller than it appears on screen, with vectors and type overlayed on top. I just realised I called this park a National Park by accident...it is actually a BC Provincial Park...beautiful place...

[Rick Dey]

Martin,
Very nice work, especially when viewed down at the 2x3 size. How much of the retouching/detail did you add by hand? I'm assuming you did this in PhotoShop, are you using the newer Intuos3 tablet? We've been doing some similar work lately, adding and retouching DEMs, but you put ours to shame. The addition of the landcover tinting really puts it over the top.

[Lui]

Nice work Martin!
I'm impressed. I really like the contrast in high mountain area. The right ridge (from the rightmost glacier) seems to me a little low. I would increase hillshading contrast and change light azimuth a little bit.

Lui

[Kartograph]

Dear Martin,

Looks great!

How did you get the tint out of the topographic maps? Colour-seperation of a scanned image or did you have the original files? Either way how long did it take you?

Regards,

Andreas

[frax]

so how many hours is behind that image? Just curious.

[Martin Gamache]

Over 10 hours for the total map, most of it on the background, and so not worth it for what they pay me for it. But some of that is figuring out how what I'm doing so I could be more efficient in my time use. The last person that I worked with on the backgrounds for this client was much more skilled at the hatchuring and sketching (see the Great Trango sample in my relief gallery for an example) but he doesn't do them anymore, and I supect the reason is that the pay was not worth it for how much time he spent on them. I would assemble, color and retouch his scanned sketches and then add linework and type.

My current workflow involves generating a greyscale shading layer from a DEM (when possible) using Manifold. I work from that layer in photoshop using a Landsat Pan image and pansharpened image as well as the georeferenced topo map for references. I also use regular photos and high resolution orthos from the guidebooks and BC photo server to determine snowline and treeline and other details. SO not doing all the shading from scratch. I have not done a piece from scratch where a DEM is not available. It is likelyto come up since most of their maps are usually of Mountain Ranges in Asia or South America where even the SRTM DEM coverage is sketchy.

Getting color from Canadian topos is easy if you have scanned them in a high resolution, they are printed using few colors, there is gradient tinting on glaciers which is more difficult but for the vegetation polygons I use the eye dropper tool and the select color functions in PS. I got my glacier coverage for this from the Sat image so it was not an issue. This map is fairly small so it does not require production type workflow, I can do more custiom selections by hand in PS to get it just right....hence the long hours.

The client Alpinist Magazine is a high end glossy climbing quarterly that retails for $13. So their standards are quite high....

[LenHoffman]

Looks Great Martin!! This is the kind of work I plan on createing .....one day

[JimBlakeslee]

Beautiful work, Martin.

[ELeFevre]

Hey Martin,
I'm a little behind on the posts, but considering you have done an incredible job (as usual) on this one, I doubt anyone will mind me breathing new life into a post that's two weeks old. Nice work. Erin

p.s. I find it amazing that this only took you 10 hours! wow.