It’s often the case that you find that you have a map from an adventure that has labels on it. You need to remove the labels before you show it to your players or they’ll know where the bad guys are. On many maps this is actually pretty easy.
- Check out the area underneath the label. Is it a square flagstone? Is it a dirty cavern floor? Now look for another area with a similar style.
- Take a selection tool – the simplest and often the most useful is the rectangular selection tool – and set the feather option to something like 10-15px (this totally depends on the resolution and size of the map you’re working on).
- Select an empty area of floor that’s similar to the one that your label is on. Copy it, and paste it to a new layer.
- Move the new layer over the label and see how it looks. The feathered edge of the selection helps it to blend in with the background. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect. It’s better to use a collection of different pasted layers, rather than one large panel. Remember, you can also rotate and flip your patch to help avoid obvious repeating patterns.
- Repeat with different patches until your label is covered.
Once you’ve done this, you can rescale your map, and slice it up for printing! The map I used for the demo was originally created for Illusionary Press. If you fancy using it for your own games, it’s available here: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=98607
this was so useful i can’t even tell