| 1 |
Obtain an outline map. Maps of the continents
and countries of the world and outline maps of the US
States are at About.com |
| 2 |
Open the map in Adobe Photoshop or in your photo editing software.
These instructions are for Photoshop ver. 5.5; your software can probably
do the same thing but the procedure might vary slightly. Experiment! |
| 3 |
Clean up the map so that you have an uncluttered outline. For example,
on my map of France I erased Corsica (sorry!) On the state maps you might
want to carefully erase the lines outside the state borders that indicate
adjacent states. |
| 4 |
Still in your photo editing software, open up the photograph you want
to insert into the map. Check the properties to make sure that the resolution
is 72 dpi and that the size of the photo is a little bigger than the size
of the map. If not, make it so. Crop the photo if you want to get rid of
extraneous stuff. |
| 5 |
Select the entire photo (SELECT-ALL) and copy it to your clipboard
(EDIT-COPY). |
| 6 |
Click on the map to make it active. Use your magic wand tool to click
inside the map and have the “marching ants” highlight the inside of the
map. |
| 7 |
Go to FILE-PASTE INTO. This should paste the photo stored in your clipboard
into the map outline. In Photoshop you can use the move tool to jiggle
the photo around in the mask to place it artistically. If it doesn’t look
right (for example, if the photo is too big or too small) delete the new
layer and start over from step 3. |
| 8 |
If you want to get rid of the map outline, click on the background
layer and erase the outline, or delete the entire background layer. |
| 9 |
In my photo I also went to LAYER-EFFECTS and beveled the map. A drop
shadow would also look nice. Before I did this I used my magic wand to
select the white layer outside the map, then to SELECT-INVERSE to select
the map photo itself. Then, I went to LAYER-DUPLICATE LAYER to make a copy
of the map photo to which the effect was applied. |
| 10 |
Save the new photo under a different name. |
