@ theticklemonster82. Eek
Easy on the drop shadows bro. Try reducing the offset and opacity, and pay more attention to layer order. Arrange so that the drop shadows are under all tribes, not between them.
eg.
what you have -----------> what you should have
tribe 1
______________________tribe 1
drop shadow 1
_______________tribe 2
tribe 2
______________________tribe 3
drop shadow 2
_______________drop shadow 1
tribe 3
______________________drop shadow 2
drop shadow 3
_______________drop shadow 3
Also, your gradients are way over the top. You don't need a rainbow splash across every tribe, a small variation is all that is needed to remove the flat colour and make it more pleasing to the eye.
Try and make your gradients consistent. I like to use radial gradients, and always take them from the center of the map to the edge.
@ Thana. A few pointers.
Stop saving as .jpg, your image quality is poor, especially noticeable when you look at the text. Try .png for much better results.
Photobucket isn't great, but one of the few that allows you to upload .gifs. I use imageshack for my .png maps.
About your animated map. There really is no reason for the file to be that large. You only have about 5 real frames, and then ridiculous frame transitions. All flash, no content.
I try to use no more than around 3 frames to transition between each frame of actual significance. A map such as yours should not need to be more than about 20 frames total. Also, you aren't optimizing your file, causing it to be many times the size it needs to be. I'll give you an example of one of my recent animated maps, that is more frames than yours, larger dimensions, yet half the file size.
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If you want to do timelapse maps, try and keep the gap between each frame constant, below I have examples of both a 2 week gap over a year, and a map that tracks a current war daily.
You can use
this site for your base maps, you don't have to regularly generate your own.
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I don't mean to get on both of your cases, I just want to help you learn.
[edit]Oh, and don't forget to date your maps, and always save the construction file (.psd, .xcf or whatever).