5 replies to this topic

[Themarko]

Here's an example of some of my work, definitely a work in progress. Comments and suggestions are certainly welcome

Attached Files

•  Tularemap.jpg   409.4K   212 downloads

[Hans van der Maarel]

Looks very interesting. I especially like the way you've done the county boundary. Any chance of seeing a bit of the urban area at the correct scale?

[Martin Gamache]

Themarko,

I would suggest working on a way to make your county edge a little bit smoother. It could be that a thick line will cover the rough transition or a bit of a blur effect to softten things up.

Depending on the scale and intended use such color intense shading as you have within your county sometimes makes it hard to read vector information. You may want to tone it down a bit while still retaining some contrast with your non-county area.

[Themarko]

Thanks for the input. I have a plan for making the county boundary look better. It actually looks good when printed out, but I'm having a problem with way ArcMap handles the transparencies in the TIFF. If I make the background transparent in Photoshop ArcMap brings it in as black. But when I set black as the transparent color in Arcmap it leaves an ugly black line. It came in better with a white background set to be transparent but still isn't great. I have county boundary layer that I'm planning on trying to use to smooth the edge.

I do have the problem of my vector data being overwhelmed, and I've had to tone it down for some projects. One thing about our county is that half of it is owned by the Feds, either Forest service or Park Service, all the mountain area. So there's almost no development there, just magnificient scenery (several peaks over 14,000 ft). That means little county involvement and so most maps have shown it only vaguely or even blank. I'm trying to show just how much variety we really have. This version is then mostly a tourist advertisement. I do plan on making the flat part, the western part, a much lighter color to show the cities and highways better. It dawned on me after I posted it that I hadn't used Photoshop very effectively on the valley floor.

Once again, thanks and any more comments are gladly welcomed.

Mark

[ELeFevre]

Themarko,

I keep wondering how it would look if you used a nice subtle line to deliniate the county boundary rather than having the county seperated from the rest of the image? Doing so may unify the image and really bring out the continuity of the landforms.

I'd really like to see the vector info at a larger scale as well. Nice work! Erin

[Matthew Hampton]

I would stay clear of sharing transparency between ArcGIS and Photoshop or of putting stylized graphics back into ArcGIS. Both software handle transparency details differently and Photoshop is clearly superior.

One way to make the county boundary clear but subtle (I often tend think cartography is all about subtly anyway) is use it as a transparency mask in Photoshop. That way clarity you bring the DEM/hypso can be diffused outside of the county but still portray the regional ruggedness.

This map might present itself well by a diffuse feathering into the background like NGS often uses, and in that case a simple county line might work as well.
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Matthew