Hungary in 16th century

[natty dread]

Well... don't worry about the border pixelation. It can be fixed later. I usually create a drop shadow for the borders, it makes them look neat.

[usamatnt]

Well... don't worry about the border pixelation. It can be fixed later. I usually create a drop shadow for the borders, it makes them look neat.

how do i make shadows ?

[natty dread]

Well... don't worry about the border pixelation. It can be fixed later. I usually create a drop shadow for the borders, it makes them look neat.

how do i make shadows ?

Install the plugins I posted on this thread earlier.

[usamatnt]

it doesnt work

[natty dread]

What are you having problems with, installing the plugin or using it?

[usamatnt]

it isnt a tool , it uses coordinates and it doesnt work

[Industrial Helix]

You're map image is also kind of small. You may want to take a look at this:

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... 66&t=40463

Increase the size of the image and perhaps a 3 will work much better as a border. My advice is to make the map at small for the initial border drawing and coloring, just to make sure everything is legible on the small map scale. Then enlarge the map to the large map size and do the rest of the graphics there. Later just downsize the map when you need a small map and save it as a different file.

Natty... doesn't paint.net have a rounded brush? It looks liek these borders have been drawn with a square brush.... or is that the round brush?

[natty dread]

Erm. You need to learn how to use it.

Take the layer that has your borders, and duplicate it. Put the duplicate layer below the borders layer.

Select the duplicate layer, then select drop shadow effect. Now you get the drop shadow window. There are several options:

X & Y: these define how far the shadow is cast. For example, if you put X in 3 and Y in 2 then the shadow goes from the original object 3 pixels to the right and 2 pixels down. Negative coords are possible to use.

Widening radius: this defines how much the shadow grows. 0 is the same size as the original object. 1 is 1 pixel more, 2 is 2 pixels more, etc.

Blur radius: this defines how much the edges of the image are blurred.

Opacity: 0 is fully transparent (invisible), 255 is fully opaque

Colour: the colour of the shadow. If you set it to white, you can use it to make glows around objects.

Keep original image: check this to preserve the object that is casting the shadow. Since we made a duplicate of the layer, this should be unchecked.

Now, when I apply drop shadow on borders, I usually set the first 4 values each to 1. Opacity I set somewhere around 190-200, and colour black, and uncheck "keep original image".

Note that the drop shadow is an object effect, ie. it works on opaque elements surrounded by transparent pixels, such as border layers, text layers, etc. If you try to use it on a fully opaque layer, like your background layer, it will not work.

The reason I usually duplicate the layer I'm using it on, then uncheck the "keep original" box, is because this way I will have the object on one layer, and it's shadow on a separate layer, I can then edit and modify these independently of each other.

[natty dread]

Natty... doesn't paint.net have a rounded brush? It looks liek these borders have been drawn with a square brush.... or is that the round brush?

The default brush is round. However there is a plugin that makes it possible to use custom brushes.

However, when the brush size is less than 3 the brush is square, as pixels are square too ...

[Industrial Helix]

Natty... doesn't paint.net have a rounded brush? It looks liek these borders have been drawn with a square brush.... or is that the round brush?

The default brush is round. However there is a plugin that makes it possible to use custom brushes.

However, when the brush size is less than 3 the brush is square, as pixels are square too ...

Wow... that seriously sucks. You guys need better small brushes cause a square head that small looks bad. Can you download the photoshop brush set for paint.net?

[natty dread]

I don't think so, but there are loads of custom brushes on the paint.net forum and you can make your own.

I didn't mean that the brush is square in small brushes, it's still round, but in practice that doesn't make a difference, since there's only 1-2 pixels.