Try this one. Free shipping and no tax
I purchased mine from Gameshack.ca, received it on Monday. Just a note, the free shipping (outside of Quebec and Ontario) is when you spend $119 CAD, so you’ll need to add something to your order if you don’t live in those provinces.
I’m pretty sure you’d want to use almost anything but Paint. I only use Photoshop, but that’s a steep investment and without serious experience as a digital artist probably overkill.
GIMP is free, and generally well-regarded. I know I’ve also used Pixlr in a pinch, but not sure how large of files it can handle.
Google is your friend, I’d search “best free Photoshop alternatives”
Thanks for the acknowledgement, YG. You forgot the most important fix (at least for the people who live on Iwo Jima) � their island is no longer upside-down in the Pacific! :-D
YG, you’ve been the visionary behind this map project over the years, so thank you for the innovative ideas, and for always striving to make the map better.
Technical note: This map file is sized 72"x33" at 300dpi.
I am also not a fan of the ghost boxes, but its interesting to see your houserule version and despite the missing combat chart, the Clean/leveled version is perfect for my taste :-)
YG and I chatted today, and we decided to offer his custom version in both color options, and the clean version in both color options. There will be some like yourself that want the battle board but not the ghost boxes, and others will want countless other variations (I read someone wanted two battle boards, lol). I just don’t have the time to be able to provide all those unique designs; I’ve already spent far too much time editing maps. :-D
In your case, you could open the custom file with the battle board in a free image editor such as http://pixlr.com/, select around the battle board, copy, and then open the clean version, and past the battle board back in place. If your selection contained some land that will help you line up the battle board to pixel perfection (use arrow keys to nudge the selection around), and then you can save the file again as your own custom JPG. :)
This sounds really great YG!
I just finished the European side of my attempt to fixup the files from Ambilzi and you. Sounds like most of my work can be thrown down the drain now as it sounds like Intrepid fixed most if not all of my issues with the original map.
Will check the new map later today to see if I can save myself the hard work of editing the pacific side of the map. Although it feels a bit like a loss of time at the moment :cry: :-)
Hi Tjoek, from what I saw you were doing excellent work, don’t throw away anything you’ve done! This new version of the map is still far from perfect, I didn’t have time to remove every single scratch, dust mark, etc off the board. I did do some work in the Pacific for sure, spent some time fixing some water glitches, and a bunch of blurred/shifted territory lines. Please copy whatever you can off this map to save yourself time!
Hey Siredblood,
Yes I have looked at the clean file, but if you compare the clean file and the leveled file, the leveled one is brighter and more colorful. As far as I know there is no leveled version without the ghost card images.
Hey, don’t confuse me with Siredblood, that’s not fair to him, lol! Yes, the “adjusted levels” file should print with more rich, vibrant color. I adjusted the levels histogram in Photoshop to make the darks/midtones more rich and then brought back some brightness. I am sending YG a clean version right now with adjusted levels, so that should give you a good base file to do your own map changes. :)
Hey YG, I understand that you designed the map and you like the boxes there, but maybe the two of you could release a version without them there? I’m sure everyone would like more options available if it isn’t too much work.
Hi Schroeder, the “clean” file has the ghost boxes removed already, have you had a chance to download and view that file?
@Imperious:
The clean version should just be the map, no air bases, naval, not strip on bottom, no anything. To me that’s clean…OOB
If that’s what you’re looking for, the “clean” file that YG and I provided should give you a good head start. I have no plans to pull further items off the board - I like the bases, income tracker, etc. YG, maybe just rename the clean file to “basic” or something so others won’t get confused? Thanks :)
Thanks for posting the files, YG. I should note that the map file is in no way perfect, but the map has been improved from the original Ambilzi scan. I found many odd artifacts, blurred lines, mis-shapen roundels, etc. I spent a couple of days cleaning up these items, but am keenly aware that more time would improve the map even more. Also, as someone else noted, the scans were obviously made from a used game board, and it would take alot of time to fix all those imperfections - so I decided to call it good enough and accept that the file has “character”!
Also, thanks to Tjoek, I stole the New Brunswick and Denmark teaser fixes that you posted in your thread. It was much quicker than trying to fix those areas myself!
Barbedor is the font.
Thnx siredblood!!! Barbedor Heavy definitely is the font used on the OOB maps.
I used Barbedor Heavy to fix some type on YG’s battle board graphic on his custom map, and the font was slightly heavier than the OOB weight. I’d guess that the OOB typeface was actually Barbedor Bold… but I haven’t found that available for download anywhere… the OOB typeface is definitely from the Barbedor family - good find whoever figured that out!
Ok, on file formats. I’ll try to keep this more brief since there are so many resources online where one could find similar information.
JPG/JPEG - Often the best choice to display continuous tone images on an electronic device, as it compresses to efficient file sizes. Not as good when creating graphics to be printed. When working from a high-resolution image and saving as a .jpg, you have the option to choose what level of compression you want to use. Higher compression = lower file size, but also lower quality - often called “jpg artifacts”, and likely what IL has experienced, and has referred to as “pixelation”. So, JPG is a balancing act… how high can I bump the compression (to reduce file size) and still be satisfied with the image quality…?
TIFF - A much better choice when printing a high-resolution image, but file size can get way out of hand quickly.
.GIF, .PNG - Bitmap image formats that are useful when you need transparency in your image. PNG files are also great for when you have really high contrast, sharp artwork - like a black logo on a white background. PNG would give you a far crisper image at a smaller file size than JPG for example. However, if you take a image like a photograph (or a map file) in Photoshop and export it as a PNG, you will avoid JPG compression (artifacting), but your file size will ballon. In some cases the image can take on a “dithered” appearance that is actually inferior to that of a .JPG.
PDF - Technically a vector format - it’s a platform and software independent format, so printers often prefer you to send artwork in PDF. Here’s the thing, You can save a bitmap image from Photoshop as a PDF - but it’s still a bitmap image! It’s just a bitmap image wrapped up in a PDF coat - and it is limited to the resolution that the original bitmap contained. Of course, some files are a composite of bitmap and vector graphics. I can create an advertisement Adobe Illustrator, the text will be vector but the accompanying photo would be bitmap - and of course I would save the whole thing as a PDF (which also can have levels of compression btw…). But, I can take that PDF, open it back up in Illustrator, scale it up to double it’s size, the vector elements will stay clear and sharp - remember they are resolution-independent, while the bitmap graphic elements will lose resolution… I should also add that any time you can send a file in true vector format to get printed, that is ALWAYS going to give you the best image quality. IE, you would never want to create a business card in Illustrator, then convert it to a bitmap format before sending to your printer. You would save your working AI file to a PDF (press quality), and send the printer the vector PDF.
So, back to the map. It’s totally fine sending it to the printer as a JPG, because we don’t have any better format to use. You could take that JPG and export it as a bitmap PDF, and would achieve no increase in quality whatsoever! Further, since the source image was a JPG, there would be no point in converting to PNG, as the PNG can’t add detail or fix artifacting that is already present - at best it will merely represent the JPG image at a higher file size.
It all comes back to what level of JPG compression was used. For the YG/Ambilzi map, I exported it from Photoshop at level “9 - high quality”, resulting file size was 138MB. Since the original image I started with was approx 115MB, I’m probably saving it at a higher quality of compression (bigger file size), than is necessary - remember you can’t add back detail, you can only prevent loss of detail).
*I need to point out that I’m limiting my recommendation to how to print that map. For a different image (say one of us created a custom, hi-res map), if there was no gradients or continuous tone imagery, then PNG (wrapped as a PDF if preferred) could very well be an ideal choice.
/how’s that for my 3rd and 4th posts ever, haha! Been a member of this forum since 2007, but I’m the ultimate lurker (mostly because I know I’m too easily tempted to get long-winded!)
Hi IL, thanks for your reply. Hopefully my explanations here can give those people on the community here who are working with these large map files a bit more understanding when dealing with their printer. Please understand I’m in no way wanting to come across as high-minded or a know-it-all; I simply have worked for 20+ years in the graphic design/print industry - and more often than not have learned the hard way! lol *By the way, ppi = resolution on a display, dpi = resolution on a device that reproduces an image (printer) - let’s keep it simple and use dpi… it’s not technically the same thing, but let’s not overcomplicate what can be a confusing subject!
It’s important to first of all understand the difference between vector and bitmap (rastor) graphics. Vector graphics are resolution-independant, meaning as long as they are kept in their vector format they can be scaled to any size without loss of detail or clarity. Many vector graphics are created in programs such as Adobe Illustrator… Common vector formats are .ai, .eps, and .pdf.
Bitmap graphics often originate from a camera (continuous tone photograph), scanner, or from bitmap software programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Bitmap graphics always have a fixed size at a specific resolution, and the two factors have a dependant, inversely correlating relationship. So, when size goes up, resolution goes down. When size goes down, resolution goes up. Common bitmap file formats are .jpg, .gif, .png, .tiff, etc. Even a .pdf might actually be a bitmap image… you can always convert a vector image to a bitmap image (rasterize), but never the other way around.
Bitmaps can be either expressed as a certain size @ a specific resolution, or at their pixel size (which expresses neither the size or resolution, but simply the amount of detail in the image). The key difference with a bitmap is that if you try and upscale the image, you keep the same amount of detail, but due to the larger size (same detail over a larger area), you lose clarity. The net effect is a loss in quality.
So, in the map file we are referring to… the size is 72x33 inches at 300 dpi, or 21600 x 9900 px. Just now, I opened that image in Photoshop, and when I changed the dimensions to 96"x44", the resolution dropped to 225 dpi - but it’s important to note that the pixel size stays the same - it’s the EXACT same image. It would be pointless for me to lock in that size, and up the resolution back up to 300, because there would be no visible increase in image detail or clarity. You can’t create resolution (detail) from nothing… it’s either there, or it’s not.
With this map from Ambilzi, I don’t know what resolution his source file was at - it would depend on the resolution that he did the original scans in. But the image YG/Ambilzi have provided us is 21600 x 9900 px, and so we won’t ever get a more detailed map without redoing the scans - no thanks!!! However, as I mentioned in my earlier post, 200+ dpi is still sufficient for this process. In this case we have a working resolution of 225 dpi.
Example: If I was to send a magazine advertisement to off to be printed by an offset printer on high-quality, gloss stock, I would never provide a bitmap graphic at a resolution higher than 300dpi, because that printer is not capable of printing more detail than that resolution provides. In fact, most people would not be able to tell the difference between a continuous tone image (photo or artwork with gradients) printed at 300dpi and one printed at 200dpi. When asked to make a side-by-side comparison, sure - but they would never pick it out on their own accord when browsing a magazine.
So, this brings us back to the map. In my experience with flat bed printers on vinyl, anything over 200dpi is pretty much superfluous. In fact, I’ve included bitmap images in tradeshow banners that were only 100dpi (because that’s the best source image I had to work with), and no-one ever knew. Having said that, if I have a 300 dpi image to send to the printer, that’s what I’ll use! And if I have to convert a vector image to bitmap, I’ll convert it to 300dpi at the right size - no point going higher in resolution.
IL, you mentioned “…I can easily tell the difference in losing 100 DPI. Its almost worse than going from PDF to Jpeg.” I need to point out that I never said it was hard to tell the difference in losing 100dpi, I said it was hard to tell the difference between 300 and 200 :) Even my grandma would be able to tell the difference between a 72dpi image and a 150dpi image (if she were alive…!)
The bottom line: the map file that I edited and sent back to YG is the same size that I received it in - and we won’t ever be able to make it bigger (add detail) - but I think it’s big enough. The only other major factor on our side of the equation when sending to a printer is choosing the best file format for the job… and that’s my next post. :)
*Hopefully I’m not disseminating any technical heresy here, I’m sure there’s someone on this forum who will be able to debunk something that I’ve shared, lol.
@Imperious:
Its too bad he never gave you the original file so if you wanted a larger print and without distortion, it could be possible. Yea and he does not return PM’s
I’ve just recently completed some tweaks to the YG/Ambilzi map file, so I’m familiar with the level of detail it provides. That .jpg is 72"x33" at 300dpi, which is a huge file. Since the resolution is so high to begin with, you would be able to have the printer scale the map up to say 96"x44", and although the resolution would drop accordingly (just over 200 dpi), it would still provide a high-quality print from a flat bed printer.
In fact, I would venture to say that most of us probably couldn’t easily tell the difference between a graphic printed at 200dpi vs 300dpi, at least not a distance further than 12"…
Hi, I’m interested in the best places (online) to buy A&A miniatures? This site seems to list alot of boosters for $7.95, are there better prices out there?
http://www.gamesinabox.com/mapminis.html
I need online retailers that will ship to Canada. Any tips in this regard will be most appreciated - Thanks!
-Super