Colors I drew keep changing

I am using a photoshop and adding additional rivers. The color to match is Red 146, Green 161, Blue 158. I did not use the "Rivers" under "Overland", I simply drew them by entering the above Red, Green Blue code using the Smooth path function. Everything was fine for weeks, until this morning. I don't know what I did but the colors are changing on these make-shift rivers I drew. They seem to automatically select a color from the color palette despite the fact that I enter the above Red, Geen, Blue code.

Prior to this, the rivers maintained their color without an issue. I apparently changed things and cannot get my map back to the way it was. Also, doing this to one map affected my backup maps as well.

If it matters, when I drew the makeshift rivers, I had the settings set as:

S: Text

L: Background

LS: Solid (I think). I'm not 100% certain that this was the setting I had.

FS: Solid (I think). I'm not 100% certain that this was the setting I had.

I know I'm somehow doing everything backwards and wrong, but my understanding of the program is so small that I cannot really understand how the Sheet, Layers, LS (Line Styles?) and FS work (I don't know what FS stands for)

Can someone help me correct the color of my makeshift rivers? Please keep you explanation very simple, most Profantasy CC3+ discussion goes over my head.

Comments

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Hi Gary :)

    Do you mean that you are drawing your map in PS and importing a bitmap of it to CC for rivers, or that you have drawn a river image in PS and imported it to CC?

  • The map was made in Photoshop by someone I hired, and it included rivers. Eventually the person stopped working on the paid project. What I got was an unfinished project. The project consisted of a World map and three continent maps. I paid for additional rivers to be added to one of the continent maps and for the removal of trees which were too close to the rivers. When I got the final map back those two features were missing (which I had paid or and was not cheap). We parted on a bad note, so I am not going to have place the extra rivers and do the tree removal again. I am taking what map I was left with and fixing it myself, using CC3+.

    I imported the Photoshop map to CC3+ and am using CC3+ to add the missing rivers, labels, mines, special sites, etc. Somehow, I managed to change the color of the extra rivers I had drawn using CC3+. Somehow this problem automatically extended to the backup maps I have stored in CC3+ in addition to the original map. I do not understand how that could have happened given that I did not work on the backup maps.

    I worked on the map all last night trying to correct it and at the moment it appears as if I was successful. I ended up deleting the rivers which had the wrong colors and redrew them, then saved the map as well and made a new backup map.

    Now I am concerned that when I add more rivers to the map, it will change the river colors once again. To get the rivers to match the original photoshop map I used CC3+ and entered Red 146, Green 161, Blue 158 in the color palette, which means I had to make my own color for the rivers to match.

    Loopysue, are able to tell me what I most likely did wrong and what I should do to avoid this problem again?

  • edited November 26

    I just checked my map again which I thought was fixed and it the rivers that were added in CC3+ reverted back to the last color shown in the little box showing the current color. So, I my efforts from last night did not fix the problem. How do I go about getting the rivers to remain using when I enter Red 146, Green 161, Blue 158 in the color palette. So disappointed. I really don't want to start this huge mapping project over AGAIN, due to the rivers having the incorrect color. I am 100% positive that ed 146, Green 161, Blue 158 are the correct color codes as the rivers were originally done in those colors, and remained accurate for a few months, up until last night.

    Loopysue, are able to tell me what I am doing wrong and what I should do to avoid this problem again? I found this link and I think it is where I am going wrong, given that the change to the color palette is not saving correctly. Yet I don't really follow what the link below tells me to do to properly save it. I just don't understand what it all includes.

    https://rpgmaps.profantasy.com/managing-the-color-palette-in-cc3/#:~:text=Fortunately%2C%20it%20is%20easy%20to%20edit%20the%20palette.,existing%20colors%2C%20and%20hit%20the%20Define%20Color%20button.

  • edited November 26

    This is the original map I have been working on. Again, the rivers display the wrong color. When I get the color correct and save it, it reverts back to the wrong color. Every time. Please note that I made 2 other posts above to help explain the problem and answer your question Loopysue.


    Edit: I just made the file as fcw32.pal open and closed the file and (for now) the rivers are correct and appears stable. However, if you can explain where I was going wrong it would be a great learning experience.

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Your rivers are set to be colour number 14, which is towards the end of the top row of palette colours. Those top 2 rows aren't meant to be modified at all, so before we put the changing colour problem right it's best if we use Change Properties to make all the rivers some other colour that doesn't appear in those top 2 rows.

    I picked a dark purple swatch near the bottom of the palette (number 227) and changed 227 to be your specified RGB shade, then attached the palette to the map and saved it. Then I changed the properties of the rivers to be colour 277. Let me know if this has cured the problem.

    There are lots of bits of river in this map. If I've missed any all you have to do is use Change Properties to make them colour 227.

    When you open the palette you should see the altered colour.


    Royal Scribe
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Incidentally, and just so you know - while I was sorting out the colour issue I noticed that your rivers are on the TEXT sheet. This may cause problems later depending on whether you want to use sheet effects or not to enhance your labels or rivers.

  • edited November 26

    I have continuously had problem understanding sheets and layers. I have read as much as I can, yet I still cannot understand how they work. I know that certain symbols, text, and so forth are designed to automatically show up on specific sheets and or layers. Yet, regardless of what I do, everything seems to revert to the Common Sheet. When it is on the Common Sheet the things I put on the map, text, symbols, rivers, etc. fail to show up as they are probably hidden. I don't know how to get everything to show up on the map at once.

    I talked to Ralf at Profantasy and he said not to use the Common Sheet. I believe he told me to make a sheet with the name of the map, which I did, though I continued having problems with the program reverting back to Common Sheet. To try and eliminate this, I placed everything under "Text" because it seemed to cause less problems with symbols I add and the white roads (I used Geometry.FSC) I made. I tried using "Roads" to make roads but didn't like the results received. I made rivers using "Smooth Path and Smooth Poly) because it was the only way I could get it to look the desired way. I'm probably doing literally everything the wrong way because I fail to understand the program correctly.

    Can you elaborate on your statement regarding the Text Sheet: "This may cause problems later depending on whether you want to use sheet effects or not to enhance your labels or rivers."

    All of these problems appear to stem from me not understanding Sheets and Layers. Is this something you can fix for me so that it is more compatible with how CC3+ is designed to work? Would it be a major overhaul of the map to fix? Would it require starting the map all over again or is it a relatively easy fix?

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Basically, which sheet an entity is on controls what effects it gets - glows, shadows, opacity etc. Sheets are like the layers in PS.

    CC layers, on the other hand, are more like PS groups. You can use them to freeze, hide or show a set of entities that might be spread over many different sheets.

    There is more detailed information in the User Manual.

    ...

    The problems I envisaged with everything on the TEXT sheet involve what will happen if you decide to give your text a dark glow (for example). The effect will go on the TEXT sheet, so will give everything on that sheet a dark glow - including the rivers. Also, any text within a river won't get the dark glow, since CC will consider only the combined outer edge of all the entities on that sheet.

    I hope that makes sense.

    Are the rivers the right colour now?

  • Yes, the rivers are correct. Thank you. I'm sure I won't be doing anything additional with the text such as the dark glow you mentioned. At this point I need to keep things simple as I have been trying (yet failing) to understand the learning curve. Things usually go wrong when I try something new and fail to succeed.

    Why did the rivers change on every map I had (the main one and a couple of backup maps? Why did the change I made accidently, not just affect the map I was working on?

  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Each time you open a different map it opens with the default palette, unless a custom palette was attached to it prior to saving it before you shut it down last time.

  • Ok, so I had changed the default palette, thus it affected the other maps when I opened them. Thank you makes sense. I appreciate your assistance Loopysue.

    Royal Scribe
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