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General Advice About Vector Artwork

  • How to edit the downloadable maps
  • Editing colours
  • Scaling recommendations
  • Dealing with text
  • About hillshading layers
  • Outputting for websites or apps
  • Outputting for print

Illustrator Tutorials

  • Understanding the map layers
  • Special option layers
  • Advanced editing of strokes in Illustrator
  • Video – How to use the map layers in Illustrator
  • Video – how to change map colours in Illustrator

Photoshop Tutorials

  • How to change the colour of a hillshading / relief layer in Photoshop

Customisation service

We offer a range of services if you need help to customise your map. Our rates are competitive and we will waive the price of the base map itself if you have already purchased one.

See bespoke services

About hillshading layers

Hillshading exampleMaproom’s physical maps have a hillshading layer composed of raster/pixel data (like on a digital photograph), with a transparent edge.

This data adds a lot of size to the files, hence we use the PNG format to keep file size to a minimum. This gives excellent rendering as the slightly blurred backdrop of hillshading at scaling between roughly A5 to A3 on our physical maps.

The hillshading PNG is embedded into the Illustrator and SVG files and you can simply turn the layer on and off like any other layer. It is also possible to make some basic edits to the colour and opacity of the embedded hillshading layer within Illustrator and some other programs.

Advanced editing of the hillshading layer

The separate PNG (or TIFF if provided) file for hillshading that is included with your download is useful if you want to make advanced changes.

To edit the hillshading colours, we recommend you open the file in Photoshop or another pixel-editing application and use colour adjustment layers.

You would then save the edited file and replace the existing embedded layer either in the Illustrator or SVG file. In Illustrator, for example, you could use the relink panel to navigate to your updated hillshading file.

If you are intending to reproduce the map at a large scale, you may want to resample the hillshading file in Photoshop, to scale it up. (We recommend the method of bicubic smoother for upscaling. ) Please note our recommended maximum scaling limits, as the hillshading layer will start to look pixellated if it goes much beyond the recommendation, especially if being used for print work at 300dpi.

Note: some older printers cannot handle the transparent outer canvas of the hillshading layer. If you have technical difficulties with the transparency in the hillshading layer, we recommend you add a sea blue (or other colour) layer to the file and flatten it before replacing it in the vector file.

These advanced editing methods require a moderate level of skill in Photoshop and Illustrator/Corel etc.

  • Standard royalty free terms for downloadable maps
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  • Licensing terms for dynamic online maps
  • How to edit the downloadable maps
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