Thanks Wyvern - that's good to know.

Most of the detailed stuff you mention is controlled by sheet effects, so it can all be adjusted quite easily.

The colour of the water is causing quite a lot of comments both here and on the FB page. It appears that what one person finds wonderful and perfect is a psychedelic and completely artificial horror to others. So to solve that issue I will include a range of colour palettes with the annual so that you can pick a theme and modify it if it isn't quite to taste. PALLOAD will access them, but to 'fix' them to each map individually mappers will have to 'Attach to drawing' in the Drawing Presets dialog.

There is even a brand new optional distort sheet that distorts the underwater scene as if it really was underwater, but this will be more useful for people more interested in the illustrative side of things rather than the mapping side, since it plays hell with the clarity of the map :P

@Wyvern - take away the coral, leave the starfish and urchin, and add barnacles, mussels and limpets instead... do you think these colours would be a nice compromise for both tropical and temperate seas?

I've also split the rocks so that the underwater ones are darker, and the shore ones have wet sides.

When the world gives you loads of noise at 4am, use it to do something useful and sleep later in the day.

How am I doing for colours, rocks, and overall appearance?

Well... maybe, on the font size.

It's bit hard to tell when the map is so small in all that white.

If you want to get rid of it and get the maximum map for the minimum MB, try using the "JPEG Bitmap file" save as type, and making your settings a bit like this:

The area of the map is then automatically rendered within the map border, and trimmed on the short side so that the long side is 3000 px.

You're making some really pretty maps, Daniel :)