Ha. I 'made my own map' by drawing over the top of an existing one. Why? Because the encounters were revealed in stages and the GM didn't want us to see the whole map and go to the hexes just for the XP/loot, and because I like making maps. Once I picked out the textures that worked the best, it came up nicely.
Original
New Map with Fog of War
Edit:
I can do it for you, or show you how, I'm not fussed either way. But if I show you how, then if this problem occurs again you can refer back to what you did before. If you want me to show you how I made the map above, also let me know. Note: I just drew over the top of the original map and grabbed some images from the internet to use as icons to save time - I didn't draw any of the icons myself. Okay, maybe one.
- First, you need as good a quality of the original map as possible. Large dimensions also helps with that. (The image I linked to wasn't the best, too many artefacts.) My rule of thumb - the bigger the better because you can always scale down for printing/putting on the web and it'll still look good, but you can't scale up without pixelation.
- Then you need to use the clone tool. If you don't know what that is, watch this tutorial.
- Use that tool to remove all the words and leave just the background that would be underneath without the words. I've done a bit of it here with the words at the top.
- With the words gone, you're free to put the words you want instead using the Text Tool and your font of choice.
- If you want the map mirrored (do this before the above step or else you have to move the text around), go to Edit> Transform> Flip Horizontal.
Tips: When cloning, sample frequently to avoid too many repeating patterns. (Patch Tool can also be quite good for replacing areas with other similar areas if you have a large area you can sample from.)
When using Text, I find putting an Outer Glow really helps make the text readable, no matter what it's sitting on top of. To do this, select your text in the layers panel, click on
fx in the bottom right hand corner, select
Outer Glow. Default settings are usually fine.