Acknowledging that nobody has the same requirement for creating maps, we have designed the Mountain High Maps collection to cater for all map making situations, whatever they may be.
To give you the greatest possible flexibility in using the relief maps, we have engineered them to contain the greatest tonal range that PostScript will allow, from black to white. This means that to some map makers the tonal range provides the perfect means of achieving punchy, dramatic, maps, whilst to others they may need toning down or manipulating in some way to create a more subtle background to a map.
Cartographers, for example, generally use relief information in the form of “hill shading” – a subtle rendering of contour data which gives the impression of relief without interfering with the usually complex cartographic data on top. On the other hand, if your map is purely for creating impact rather than for displaying information – in an advertisement, for example – you may be looking for a map which provides an interesting and dramatic image rather than a simple flat shape. Mountain High Maps and Photoshop provide you with the means of achieving either of these extremes – and everything in between.
The purpose to which you are going to put your map determines how you should start off in Photoshop. For example, Photoshop offers many ways of changing tonal ranges or adding color, and in combination with the masks in the Mountain High Maps collection, the possibilities become almost endless, so you should first decide whether you want your map to have impact or subtlety. The examples below show basic treatments applied to a grayscale map – click on a map to go straight to the chapter where you will find more advice on the technique.
 
The illustration above shows an untreated Mountain High Maps grayscale map – fine on its own, but too much contrast for adding anything other than very bold information.
 
This shows the grayscale map after it has been adjusted using Photoshop’s “Adjust > Brightness/Contrast” controls (“Image” menu), where the brightness has been increased (+60%), and the contrast decreased (–50%). This is ideal for monochrome maps which are to display a high density of text and other information.
 
Having changed the mode to RGB color, we used the “Colorize” feature (“Adjust > Hue/Saturation” command) to give the map above a green color (Hue: 120, Saturation: 50). This results in a bright image, but with high contrast.
 
To give the relief a more subtle appearance, we first lightened the map above by using the “Adjust > Brightness/Contrast” controls, and then colorizing it as in the previous example.
 
If you need your map to have a precise CMYK value, or a specific color such as one from the Pantone® Matching System, you can achieve this by
applying the color to the map while in “Duotone” mode (select “Monotone” from the pop-up menu, then click on the color square), and then changing the mode to RGB color. This is generally the most appropriate start to creating a color map in Photoshop.
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