Hi, New to Photoshop

[caters]

I am new to Photoshop but I plan to draw a map of my fictional world, then print and tape it so that I will be able to fold the map without crumpling the paper so I am thinking I will need 12 Letter size pages with 3 rows and 4 columns. I have heard that for such a map you will want a resolution of 300 pixels/inch.

But I have a question. How would I need to make it look realistic, like it could be an actual map of an earth-like planet? Simulate earth and base all the weather and thus biomes off of that? That sounds very very complicated. I mean rain shadows, storms, it's all very complicated. So how could I possibly get deserts where they should be, forests where they should be, etc.? The bodies of water thing is pretty simple but land biomes, pretty complicated.

 

[IamSam]

Hello.

Based on what you have described, I would suspect that this project could be beyond your current Ps skill level. But as with anything in life you take it one step at a time.

While I'm certain that you have some mental imagery of what you describe, it's hard for the rest of us to envision without some type of example. Once we have an idea of what it is exactly that your looking for, then we can possibly point you in a direction.

 

[polarwoc]

Are you looking for something like this? Or something like this? If so, it is possible - but you need to explain more with pictures.

 

[caters]

I might want something like what is in the fifth post of the second link for the biomes but the problem I see with that is Prairie vs Savannah. Both are biomes dominated by grass and both have a wet and dry season so how would I distinguish the 2 on a map? Plus, I would probably want to distinguish ocean depth so that for example the intertidal is the lighest and has x number of pixels whereas the deepest trenches would be very dark and maybe have a smaller number of pixels than the intertidal. Of course, this means I have to increase the land mass itself by x number of pixels and cover exactly half the distance between high and low tide in light blue which means I would probably want the original outline of the land mass to be a hidden layer. That or figure out the ocean first and then add the land mass(though I think adding the ocean on top of the land mass would be best).

The map in the first link, I might want to use something like that for like a city map but probably not for showing the biomes in the world.