Archiwum miesiąca: lipiec 2019

Web Tools

Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Post pobrano z: Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Adobe InDesign has long been the market leader in publishing software. But rival layout design programs are starting to make waves in the market, with Affinity Publisher being the latest to offer a competitive alternative to InDesign.

affinity logo

If you’re a seasoned print designer or are looking to dip a toe into publishing design, you’ll want to read on to discover our assessment of Affinity Publisher and whether we think it’s a decent alternative to Adobe’s publishing giant.

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

What Is Affinity Publisher?

Affinity Publisher is a publishing program for Mac and Windows that allows you to create single- and multi-page documents. Publishing programs are suitable for creating layout-based media, which combine typography, graphics, and photos, such as magazines, brochures, flyers, and books. Most publishing programs allow users to create content for both print and online, as well as EPUBs (eBooks). 

affinity sample layout

Serif released the full version of Affinity in June 2019 (it had previously only been available in beta format). Fans of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, decent and good value alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, will find that Publisher makes a seamless and useful addition to their collection of Affinity apps. 

Through technology called StudioLink, Publisher can be integrated with Affinity’s other apps, Photo and Designer, allowing users to seamlessly create and edit images before integrating them into Publisher layouts. 

studiolink

What’s the Difference Between Affinity Publisher and Adobe InDesign?

For budget-conscious creatives, the main advantage of Affinity Publisher is that it’s excellent value, retailing at just £48.99 (around $64 and AU$87) for the single app download. Users aren’t tied into a subscription model, an irritant for some Adobe users. 

Publisher’s competitive price will make it a serious competitor on price point with Adobe, which offers InDesign CC at a subscription price only, with the single app costing users $19.99 a month. 

In terms of usability, Affinity Publisher owes a great deal to InDesign in terms of functionality and interface. Superficially, the differences between the two are minor, and it really comes down to which program you feel most comfortable with using. 

We took Affinity Publisher for a test drive to see how it compares to InDesign and how it functions as a publishing program. Read on to discover our thoughts on Publisher, and assess whether you should make the switch from InDesign.

What’s Good About Affinity Publisher?

It’s Adaptable for Modern Web Design

The latest release of InDesign CC has certainly improved the web and ePublishing design experience for users, with better capabilities for setting up web-friendly layouts and exporting to interactive formats. However, it appears that Affinity Publisher has put the modern web design process at the heart of its design. 

You can choose from a wide range of screen size options, which include all mass-market up-to-date devices. You can also choose to design specifically for Web or Devices, each of which contains a wide range of pre-saved formats to choose from, including an updated catalog of iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Nexus and Kindle screen sizes. 

screen sizes

It’s More Flexible Than InDesign… in Some Ways

Because InDesign is built on foundations which preceded web design, stemming from the technology developed by Quark for the first layout publishing program, QuarkXPress, it is still a traditional print publishing program at heart. 

Publisher by contrast, though inspired by the InDesign interface, doesn’t have the same historical legacy, and there are some features of the program which feel more relevant for how designers work now. 

One example is the ability to set a facing page document to begin on a left-hand page. Sure, this isn’t what you’d want to choose for a traditional multi-page document like a print book or magazine, but there are occasions where you might want to start your document with a two-page spread, like eMagazines or interactive PDFs, for example.

left page start

It’s Speedier and Lighter Than InDesign

One of the main complaints with InDesign is the processing power of the software. It’s a very heavy program, which can have an impact on usability, particularly if you’re working on a laptop rather than a desktop. Switching the Display Performance in InDesign to Fast Display can solve the problem, but it also means you have to do the bulk of your work while looking at heavily pixelated images. 

Publisher is a heavy program too, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It’s whippet-quick, even when I was trying it out on my ancient laptop, which struggles to open InDesign in less than 15 minutes. 

Images in Publisher remain crisp and clear, which helps you to assess the quality of images accurately while you work. 

image quality

An extra bonus—I had no issues with stalling or crashing, which was an almost daily occurrence when I was working with InDesign CS6 and a monthly occurrence with InDesign CC. 

If You’re an InDesign User, It Feels Intuitive

Serif has mimicked the InDesign interface in Publisher for good reason, in the hope of converting committed InDesign users. 

If you’re a seasoned InDesign user, the Publisher interface will feel very familiar, with the tools panel docked to the left and the most-used panels, including Color, Swatches, and Stroke, docked in their usual position to the right. 

The Pages panel has been shifted to the left, but personally this feels like an improvement on InDesign’s default docking of the same panel to the right of the screen.

interface overview

It Has a Useful Clipboard Feature, 'Assets’

Clipboards are really useful for producing designs that use repeated visual content (such as company logos) or specific sets of icons (such as emojis or UI icons).

Affinity has a handy clipboard function called Assets, which is docked on the left side of the interface, alongside the Pages panel. 

It’s quick and easy to create your own library of asset categories, allowing you to access essential images in an instant. Particularly handy for designers working with brand identities.

assets panel

What’s Not So Good About Affinity Publisher?

Publisher has been tightened up significantly since the beta release, and Serif have obviously benefitted from inviting users to share their thoughts and feedback on the beta version.  

Generally, Publisher is a well-rounded program with all the major features InDesign users would be accustomed to. However, it is admittedly better value than InDesign for a reason—it is overall a less sophisticated program that lacks some of the advanced features InDesign users enjoy.

Here are just a few of the issues I encountered in my (albeit Publisher novice) experience with the program.

Some of the Options in Publisher Are Not Immediately Obvious

Many of Publisher’s 'flaws’ are more to do with the difference between the Publisher and InDesign interfaces. Generally I found I had to take more steps to complete the same action in Publisher, but this is unlikely to bother users who are new to InDesign and Publisher.

In the beta version of Publisher, in the New Document window, the Color Format of the document was not automatically adjusted to the corresponding document Type, but this has since been rectified in the full release.

What is a little different is that the Layout, Color, Margins and Bleed options are organised into separate tabs in the window, meaning that it could be easy to forget to set or check these settings before creating a new document.

new document

For observant (and wide awake designers) this is a minor issue, but there’s something intrinsically helpful about InDesign’s New Document window containing everything you need in one place.

Where’s the Snap?

One of the really nice, but probably under-appreciated, features of InDesign is the ability of the program to ‘snap’ the edges of frames and shapes to other objects. For example, if you’re trying to get two text frames perfectly lined up, InDesign senses what you’re trying to do and produces a ‘snap’ movement and colored line to help guide the frame into position. 

By default, InDesign introduces the snap feature, making it instantly easy-peasy to line up the edges of text and image frames.

Publisher doesn’t apply a snap automatically, but as seems to be the case with most things in Publisher, you just need to do a bit of hunting around and apply the desired effect manually. You can switch on snapping in Publisher by going to View > Snapping Manager and checking Enable snapping.

enable snapping

Affinity Publisher: Our Verdict

If you’re looking for a good value alternative to Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher is a no-brainer. 

For marketers needing to create certain items in-house or designers looking to pick up new publishing design skills, Publisher is a budget-friendly and intuitive way to hone your skills and create a wide range of layout media, from magazines to books. For budding web designers, there’s also plenty on offer for creating layouts for websites, apps and EPUBs too.

If you’re a committed InDesign user, you might find it initially difficult to make the switch to Affinity Publisher, as the latter lacks some of the sophistication and advanced features of the former. Publisher can feel a little clumsy in comparison, but this impression quickly diminishes the more time spent using the application.

publisher interface

All in all, Affinity Publisher is shaping up to be a serious rival for InDesign, competing on both value for money and functionality. So watch this space! 

We’d love to know your thoughts on Affinity Publisher. Are you a Publisher convert or die-hard InDesign fan? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

Check out more reviews of Affinity programs and suggestions for alternative design software:

Web Tools

Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Post pobrano z: Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Adobe InDesign has long been the market leader in publishing software. But rival layout design programs are starting to make waves in the market, with Affinity Publisher being the latest to offer a competitive alternative to InDesign.

affinity logo

If you’re a seasoned print designer or are looking to dip a toe into publishing design, you’ll want to read on to discover our assessment of Affinity Publisher and whether we think it’s a decent alternative to Adobe’s publishing giant.

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

What Is Affinity Publisher?

Affinity Publisher is a publishing program for Mac and Windows that allows you to create single- and multi-page documents. Publishing programs are suitable for creating layout-based media, which combine typography, graphics, and photos, such as magazines, brochures, flyers, and books. Most publishing programs allow users to create content for both print and online, as well as EPUBs (eBooks). 

affinity sample layout

Serif released the full version of Affinity in June 2019 (it had previously only been available in beta format). Fans of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, decent and good value alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, will find that Publisher makes a seamless and useful addition to their collection of Affinity apps. 

Through technology called StudioLink, Publisher can be integrated with Affinity’s other apps, Photo and Designer, allowing users to seamlessly create and edit images before integrating them into Publisher layouts. 

studiolink

What’s the Difference Between Affinity Publisher and Adobe InDesign?

For budget-conscious creatives, the main advantage of Affinity Publisher is that it’s excellent value, retailing at just £48.99 (around $64 and AU$87) for the single app download. Users aren’t tied into a subscription model, an irritant for some Adobe users. 

Publisher’s competitive price will make it a serious competitor on price point with Adobe, which offers InDesign CC at a subscription price only, with the single app costing users $19.99 a month. 

In terms of usability, Affinity Publisher owes a great deal to InDesign in terms of functionality and interface. Superficially, the differences between the two are minor, and it really comes down to which program you feel most comfortable with using. 

We took Affinity Publisher for a test drive to see how it compares to InDesign and how it functions as a publishing program. Read on to discover our thoughts on Publisher, and assess whether you should make the switch from InDesign.

What’s Good About Affinity Publisher?

It’s Adaptable for Modern Web Design

The latest release of InDesign CC has certainly improved the web and ePublishing design experience for users, with better capabilities for setting up web-friendly layouts and exporting to interactive formats. However, it appears that Affinity Publisher has put the modern web design process at the heart of its design. 

You can choose from a wide range of screen size options, which include all mass-market up-to-date devices. You can also choose to design specifically for Web or Devices, each of which contains a wide range of pre-saved formats to choose from, including an updated catalog of iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Nexus and Kindle screen sizes. 

screen sizes

It’s More Flexible Than InDesign… in Some Ways

Because InDesign is built on foundations which preceded web design, stemming from the technology developed by Quark for the first layout publishing program, QuarkXPress, it is still a traditional print publishing program at heart. 

Publisher by contrast, though inspired by the InDesign interface, doesn’t have the same historical legacy, and there are some features of the program which feel more relevant for how designers work now. 

One example is the ability to set a facing page document to begin on a left-hand page. Sure, this isn’t what you’d want to choose for a traditional multi-page document like a print book or magazine, but there are occasions where you might want to start your document with a two-page spread, like eMagazines or interactive PDFs, for example.

left page start

It’s Speedier and Lighter Than InDesign

One of the main complaints with InDesign is the processing power of the software. It’s a very heavy program, which can have an impact on usability, particularly if you’re working on a laptop rather than a desktop. Switching the Display Performance in InDesign to Fast Display can solve the problem, but it also means you have to do the bulk of your work while looking at heavily pixelated images. 

Publisher is a heavy program too, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It’s whippet-quick, even when I was trying it out on my ancient laptop, which struggles to open InDesign in less than 15 minutes. 

Images in Publisher remain crisp and clear, which helps you to assess the quality of images accurately while you work. 

image quality

An extra bonus—I had no issues with stalling or crashing, which was an almost daily occurrence when I was working with InDesign CS6 and a monthly occurrence with InDesign CC. 

If You’re an InDesign User, It Feels Intuitive

Serif has mimicked the InDesign interface in Publisher for good reason, in the hope of converting committed InDesign users. 

If you’re a seasoned InDesign user, the Publisher interface will feel very familiar, with the tools panel docked to the left and the most-used panels, including Color, Swatches, and Stroke, docked in their usual position to the right. 

The Pages panel has been shifted to the left, but personally this feels like an improvement on InDesign’s default docking of the same panel to the right of the screen.

interface overview

It Has a Useful Clipboard Feature, 'Assets’

Clipboards are really useful for producing designs that use repeated visual content (such as company logos) or specific sets of icons (such as emojis or UI icons).

Affinity has a handy clipboard function called Assets, which is docked on the left side of the interface, alongside the Pages panel. 

It’s quick and easy to create your own library of asset categories, allowing you to access essential images in an instant. Particularly handy for designers working with brand identities.

assets panel

What’s Not So Good About Affinity Publisher?

Publisher has been tightened up significantly since the beta release, and Serif have obviously benefitted from inviting users to share their thoughts and feedback on the beta version.  

Generally, Publisher is a well-rounded program with all the major features InDesign users would be accustomed to. However, it is admittedly better value than InDesign for a reason—it is overall a less sophisticated program that lacks some of the advanced features InDesign users enjoy.

Here are just a few of the issues I encountered in my (albeit Publisher novice) experience with the program.

Some of the Options in Publisher Are Not Immediately Obvious

Many of Publisher’s 'flaws’ are more to do with the difference between the Publisher and InDesign interfaces. Generally I found I had to take more steps to complete the same action in Publisher, but this is unlikely to bother users who are new to InDesign and Publisher.

In the beta version of Publisher, in the New Document window, the Color Format of the document was not automatically adjusted to the corresponding document Type, but this has since been rectified in the full release.

What is a little different is that the Layout, Color, Margins and Bleed options are organised into separate tabs in the window, meaning that it could be easy to forget to set or check these settings before creating a new document.

new document

For observant (and wide awake designers) this is a minor issue, but there’s something intrinsically helpful about InDesign’s New Document window containing everything you need in one place.

Where’s the Snap?

One of the really nice, but probably under-appreciated, features of InDesign is the ability of the program to ‘snap’ the edges of frames and shapes to other objects. For example, if you’re trying to get two text frames perfectly lined up, InDesign senses what you’re trying to do and produces a ‘snap’ movement and colored line to help guide the frame into position. 

By default, InDesign introduces the snap feature, making it instantly easy-peasy to line up the edges of text and image frames.

Publisher doesn’t apply a snap automatically, but as seems to be the case with most things in Publisher, you just need to do a bit of hunting around and apply the desired effect manually. You can switch on snapping in Publisher by going to View > Snapping Manager and checking Enable snapping.

enable snapping

Affinity Publisher: Our Verdict

If you’re looking for a good value alternative to Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher is a no-brainer. 

For marketers needing to create certain items in-house or designers looking to pick up new publishing design skills, Publisher is a budget-friendly and intuitive way to hone your skills and create a wide range of layout media, from magazines to books. For budding web designers, there’s also plenty on offer for creating layouts for websites, apps and EPUBs too.

If you’re a committed InDesign user, you might find it initially difficult to make the switch to Affinity Publisher, as the latter lacks some of the sophistication and advanced features of the former. Publisher can feel a little clumsy in comparison, but this impression quickly diminishes the more time spent using the application.

publisher interface

All in all, Affinity Publisher is shaping up to be a serious rival for InDesign, competing on both value for money and functionality. So watch this space! 

We’d love to know your thoughts on Affinity Publisher. Are you a Publisher convert or die-hard InDesign fan? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

Check out more reviews of Affinity programs and suggestions for alternative design software:

Web Tools

Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Post pobrano z: Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Adobe InDesign has long been the market leader in publishing software. But rival layout design programs are starting to make waves in the market, with Affinity Publisher being the latest to offer a competitive alternative to InDesign.

affinity logo

If you’re a seasoned print designer or are looking to dip a toe into publishing design, you’ll want to read on to discover our assessment of Affinity Publisher and whether we think it’s a decent alternative to Adobe’s publishing giant.

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

What Is Affinity Publisher?

Affinity Publisher is a publishing program for Mac and Windows that allows you to create single- and multi-page documents. Publishing programs are suitable for creating layout-based media, which combine typography, graphics, and photos, such as magazines, brochures, flyers, and books. Most publishing programs allow users to create content for both print and online, as well as EPUBs (eBooks). 

affinity sample layout

Serif released the full version of Affinity in June 2019 (it had previously only been available in beta format). Fans of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, decent and good value alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, will find that Publisher makes a seamless and useful addition to their collection of Affinity apps. 

Through technology called StudioLink, Publisher can be integrated with Affinity’s other apps, Photo and Designer, allowing users to seamlessly create and edit images before integrating them into Publisher layouts. 

studiolink

What’s the Difference Between Affinity Publisher and Adobe InDesign?

For budget-conscious creatives, the main advantage of Affinity Publisher is that it’s excellent value, retailing at just £48.99 (around $64 and AU$87) for the single app download. Users aren’t tied into a subscription model, an irritant for some Adobe users. 

Publisher’s competitive price will make it a serious competitor on price point with Adobe, which offers InDesign CC at a subscription price only, with the single app costing users $19.99 a month. 

In terms of usability, Affinity Publisher owes a great deal to InDesign in terms of functionality and interface. Superficially, the differences between the two are minor, and it really comes down to which program you feel most comfortable with using. 

We took Affinity Publisher for a test drive to see how it compares to InDesign and how it functions as a publishing program. Read on to discover our thoughts on Publisher, and assess whether you should make the switch from InDesign.

What’s Good About Affinity Publisher?

It’s Adaptable for Modern Web Design

The latest release of InDesign CC has certainly improved the web and ePublishing design experience for users, with better capabilities for setting up web-friendly layouts and exporting to interactive formats. However, it appears that Affinity Publisher has put the modern web design process at the heart of its design. 

You can choose from a wide range of screen size options, which include all mass-market up-to-date devices. You can also choose to design specifically for Web or Devices, each of which contains a wide range of pre-saved formats to choose from, including an updated catalog of iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Nexus and Kindle screen sizes. 

screen sizes

It’s More Flexible Than InDesign… in Some Ways

Because InDesign is built on foundations which preceded web design, stemming from the technology developed by Quark for the first layout publishing program, QuarkXPress, it is still a traditional print publishing program at heart. 

Publisher by contrast, though inspired by the InDesign interface, doesn’t have the same historical legacy, and there are some features of the program which feel more relevant for how designers work now. 

One example is the ability to set a facing page document to begin on a left-hand page. Sure, this isn’t what you’d want to choose for a traditional multi-page document like a print book or magazine, but there are occasions where you might want to start your document with a two-page spread, like eMagazines or interactive PDFs, for example.

left page start

It’s Speedier and Lighter Than InDesign

One of the main complaints with InDesign is the processing power of the software. It’s a very heavy program, which can have an impact on usability, particularly if you’re working on a laptop rather than a desktop. Switching the Display Performance in InDesign to Fast Display can solve the problem, but it also means you have to do the bulk of your work while looking at heavily pixelated images. 

Publisher is a heavy program too, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It’s whippet-quick, even when I was trying it out on my ancient laptop, which struggles to open InDesign in less than 15 minutes. 

Images in Publisher remain crisp and clear, which helps you to assess the quality of images accurately while you work. 

image quality

An extra bonus—I had no issues with stalling or crashing, which was an almost daily occurrence when I was working with InDesign CS6 and a monthly occurrence with InDesign CC. 

If You’re an InDesign User, It Feels Intuitive

Serif has mimicked the InDesign interface in Publisher for good reason, in the hope of converting committed InDesign users. 

If you’re a seasoned InDesign user, the Publisher interface will feel very familiar, with the tools panel docked to the left and the most-used panels, including Color, Swatches, and Stroke, docked in their usual position to the right. 

The Pages panel has been shifted to the left, but personally this feels like an improvement on InDesign’s default docking of the same panel to the right of the screen.

interface overview

It Has a Useful Clipboard Feature, 'Assets’

Clipboards are really useful for producing designs that use repeated visual content (such as company logos) or specific sets of icons (such as emojis or UI icons).

Affinity has a handy clipboard function called Assets, which is docked on the left side of the interface, alongside the Pages panel. 

It’s quick and easy to create your own library of asset categories, allowing you to access essential images in an instant. Particularly handy for designers working with brand identities.

assets panel

What’s Not So Good About Affinity Publisher?

Publisher has been tightened up significantly since the beta release, and Serif have obviously benefitted from inviting users to share their thoughts and feedback on the beta version.  

Generally, Publisher is a well-rounded program with all the major features InDesign users would be accustomed to. However, it is admittedly better value than InDesign for a reason—it is overall a less sophisticated program that lacks some of the advanced features InDesign users enjoy.

Here are just a few of the issues I encountered in my (albeit Publisher novice) experience with the program.

Some of the Options in Publisher Are Not Immediately Obvious

Many of Publisher’s 'flaws’ are more to do with the difference between the Publisher and InDesign interfaces. Generally I found I had to take more steps to complete the same action in Publisher, but this is unlikely to bother users who are new to InDesign and Publisher.

In the beta version of Publisher, in the New Document window, the Color Format of the document was not automatically adjusted to the corresponding document Type, but this has since been rectified in the full release.

What is a little different is that the Layout, Color, Margins and Bleed options are organised into separate tabs in the window, meaning that it could be easy to forget to set or check these settings before creating a new document.

new document

For observant (and wide awake designers) this is a minor issue, but there’s something intrinsically helpful about InDesign’s New Document window containing everything you need in one place.

Where’s the Snap?

One of the really nice, but probably under-appreciated, features of InDesign is the ability of the program to ‘snap’ the edges of frames and shapes to other objects. For example, if you’re trying to get two text frames perfectly lined up, InDesign senses what you’re trying to do and produces a ‘snap’ movement and colored line to help guide the frame into position. 

By default, InDesign introduces the snap feature, making it instantly easy-peasy to line up the edges of text and image frames.

Publisher doesn’t apply a snap automatically, but as seems to be the case with most things in Publisher, you just need to do a bit of hunting around and apply the desired effect manually. You can switch on snapping in Publisher by going to View > Snapping Manager and checking Enable snapping.

enable snapping

Affinity Publisher: Our Verdict

If you’re looking for a good value alternative to Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher is a no-brainer. 

For marketers needing to create certain items in-house or designers looking to pick up new publishing design skills, Publisher is a budget-friendly and intuitive way to hone your skills and create a wide range of layout media, from magazines to books. For budding web designers, there’s also plenty on offer for creating layouts for websites, apps and EPUBs too.

If you’re a committed InDesign user, you might find it initially difficult to make the switch to Affinity Publisher, as the latter lacks some of the sophistication and advanced features of the former. Publisher can feel a little clumsy in comparison, but this impression quickly diminishes the more time spent using the application.

publisher interface

All in all, Affinity Publisher is shaping up to be a serious rival for InDesign, competing on both value for money and functionality. So watch this space! 

We’d love to know your thoughts on Affinity Publisher. Are you a Publisher convert or die-hard InDesign fan? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

Check out more reviews of Affinity programs and suggestions for alternative design software:

Web Tools

Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Post pobrano z: Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Adobe InDesign has long been the market leader in publishing software. But rival layout design programs are starting to make waves in the market, with Affinity Publisher being the latest to offer a competitive alternative to InDesign.

affinity logo

If you’re a seasoned print designer or are looking to dip a toe into publishing design, you’ll want to read on to discover our assessment of Affinity Publisher and whether we think it’s a decent alternative to Adobe’s publishing giant.

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

What Is Affinity Publisher?

Affinity Publisher is a publishing program for Mac and Windows that allows you to create single- and multi-page documents. Publishing programs are suitable for creating layout-based media, which combine typography, graphics, and photos, such as magazines, brochures, flyers, and books. Most publishing programs allow users to create content for both print and online, as well as EPUBs (eBooks). 

affinity sample layout

Serif released the full version of Affinity in June 2019 (it had previously only been available in beta format). Fans of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, decent and good value alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, will find that Publisher makes a seamless and useful addition to their collection of Affinity apps. 

Through technology called StudioLink, Publisher can be integrated with Affinity’s other apps, Photo and Designer, allowing users to seamlessly create and edit images before integrating them into Publisher layouts. 

studiolink

What’s the Difference Between Affinity Publisher and Adobe InDesign?

For budget-conscious creatives, the main advantage of Affinity Publisher is that it’s excellent value, retailing at just £48.99 (around $64 and AU$87) for the single app download. Users aren’t tied into a subscription model, an irritant for some Adobe users. 

Publisher’s competitive price will make it a serious competitor on price point with Adobe, which offers InDesign CC at a subscription price only, with the single app costing users $19.99 a month. 

In terms of usability, Affinity Publisher owes a great deal to InDesign in terms of functionality and interface. Superficially, the differences between the two are minor, and it really comes down to which program you feel most comfortable with using. 

We took Affinity Publisher for a test drive to see how it compares to InDesign and how it functions as a publishing program. Read on to discover our thoughts on Publisher, and assess whether you should make the switch from InDesign.

What’s Good About Affinity Publisher?

It’s Adaptable for Modern Web Design

The latest release of InDesign CC has certainly improved the web and ePublishing design experience for users, with better capabilities for setting up web-friendly layouts and exporting to interactive formats. However, it appears that Affinity Publisher has put the modern web design process at the heart of its design. 

You can choose from a wide range of screen size options, which include all mass-market up-to-date devices. You can also choose to design specifically for Web or Devices, each of which contains a wide range of pre-saved formats to choose from, including an updated catalog of iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Nexus and Kindle screen sizes. 

screen sizes

It’s More Flexible Than InDesign… in Some Ways

Because InDesign is built on foundations which preceded web design, stemming from the technology developed by Quark for the first layout publishing program, QuarkXPress, it is still a traditional print publishing program at heart. 

Publisher by contrast, though inspired by the InDesign interface, doesn’t have the same historical legacy, and there are some features of the program which feel more relevant for how designers work now. 

One example is the ability to set a facing page document to begin on a left-hand page. Sure, this isn’t what you’d want to choose for a traditional multi-page document like a print book or magazine, but there are occasions where you might want to start your document with a two-page spread, like eMagazines or interactive PDFs, for example.

left page start

It’s Speedier and Lighter Than InDesign

One of the main complaints with InDesign is the processing power of the software. It’s a very heavy program, which can have an impact on usability, particularly if you’re working on a laptop rather than a desktop. Switching the Display Performance in InDesign to Fast Display can solve the problem, but it also means you have to do the bulk of your work while looking at heavily pixelated images. 

Publisher is a heavy program too, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It’s whippet-quick, even when I was trying it out on my ancient laptop, which struggles to open InDesign in less than 15 minutes. 

Images in Publisher remain crisp and clear, which helps you to assess the quality of images accurately while you work. 

image quality

An extra bonus—I had no issues with stalling or crashing, which was an almost daily occurrence when I was working with InDesign CS6 and a monthly occurrence with InDesign CC. 

If You’re an InDesign User, It Feels Intuitive

Serif has mimicked the InDesign interface in Publisher for good reason, in the hope of converting committed InDesign users. 

If you’re a seasoned InDesign user, the Publisher interface will feel very familiar, with the tools panel docked to the left and the most-used panels, including Color, Swatches, and Stroke, docked in their usual position to the right. 

The Pages panel has been shifted to the left, but personally this feels like an improvement on InDesign’s default docking of the same panel to the right of the screen.

interface overview

It Has a Useful Clipboard Feature, 'Assets’

Clipboards are really useful for producing designs that use repeated visual content (such as company logos) or specific sets of icons (such as emojis or UI icons).

Affinity has a handy clipboard function called Assets, which is docked on the left side of the interface, alongside the Pages panel. 

It’s quick and easy to create your own library of asset categories, allowing you to access essential images in an instant. Particularly handy for designers working with brand identities.

assets panel

What’s Not So Good About Affinity Publisher?

Publisher has been tightened up significantly since the beta release, and Serif have obviously benefitted from inviting users to share their thoughts and feedback on the beta version.  

Generally, Publisher is a well-rounded program with all the major features InDesign users would be accustomed to. However, it is admittedly better value than InDesign for a reason—it is overall a less sophisticated program that lacks some of the advanced features InDesign users enjoy.

Here are just a few of the issues I encountered in my (albeit Publisher novice) experience with the program.

Some of the Options in Publisher Are Not Immediately Obvious

Many of Publisher’s 'flaws’ are more to do with the difference between the Publisher and InDesign interfaces. Generally I found I had to take more steps to complete the same action in Publisher, but this is unlikely to bother users who are new to InDesign and Publisher.

In the beta version of Publisher, in the New Document window, the Color Format of the document was not automatically adjusted to the corresponding document Type, but this has since been rectified in the full release.

What is a little different is that the Layout, Color, Margins and Bleed options are organised into separate tabs in the window, meaning that it could be easy to forget to set or check these settings before creating a new document.

new document

For observant (and wide awake designers) this is a minor issue, but there’s something intrinsically helpful about InDesign’s New Document window containing everything you need in one place.

Where’s the Snap?

One of the really nice, but probably under-appreciated, features of InDesign is the ability of the program to ‘snap’ the edges of frames and shapes to other objects. For example, if you’re trying to get two text frames perfectly lined up, InDesign senses what you’re trying to do and produces a ‘snap’ movement and colored line to help guide the frame into position. 

By default, InDesign introduces the snap feature, making it instantly easy-peasy to line up the edges of text and image frames.

Publisher doesn’t apply a snap automatically, but as seems to be the case with most things in Publisher, you just need to do a bit of hunting around and apply the desired effect manually. You can switch on snapping in Publisher by going to View > Snapping Manager and checking Enable snapping.

enable snapping

Affinity Publisher: Our Verdict

If you’re looking for a good value alternative to Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher is a no-brainer. 

For marketers needing to create certain items in-house or designers looking to pick up new publishing design skills, Publisher is a budget-friendly and intuitive way to hone your skills and create a wide range of layout media, from magazines to books. For budding web designers, there’s also plenty on offer for creating layouts for websites, apps and EPUBs too.

If you’re a committed InDesign user, you might find it initially difficult to make the switch to Affinity Publisher, as the latter lacks some of the sophistication and advanced features of the former. Publisher can feel a little clumsy in comparison, but this impression quickly diminishes the more time spent using the application.

publisher interface

All in all, Affinity Publisher is shaping up to be a serious rival for InDesign, competing on both value for money and functionality. So watch this space! 

We’d love to know your thoughts on Affinity Publisher. Are you a Publisher convert or die-hard InDesign fan? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

Check out more reviews of Affinity programs and suggestions for alternative design software:

Web Tools

Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Post pobrano z: Affinity Publisher: Your Guide to InDesign’s New Rival

Adobe InDesign has long been the market leader in publishing software. But rival layout design programs are starting to make waves in the market, with Affinity Publisher being the latest to offer a competitive alternative to InDesign.

affinity logo

If you’re a seasoned print designer or are looking to dip a toe into publishing design, you’ll want to read on to discover our assessment of Affinity Publisher and whether we think it’s a decent alternative to Adobe’s publishing giant.

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

What Is Affinity Publisher?

Affinity Publisher is a publishing program for Mac and Windows that allows you to create single- and multi-page documents. Publishing programs are suitable for creating layout-based media, which combine typography, graphics, and photos, such as magazines, brochures, flyers, and books. Most publishing programs allow users to create content for both print and online, as well as EPUBs (eBooks). 

affinity sample layout

Serif released the full version of Affinity in June 2019 (it had previously only been available in beta format). Fans of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer, decent and good value alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, will find that Publisher makes a seamless and useful addition to their collection of Affinity apps. 

Through technology called StudioLink, Publisher can be integrated with Affinity’s other apps, Photo and Designer, allowing users to seamlessly create and edit images before integrating them into Publisher layouts. 

studiolink

What’s the Difference Between Affinity Publisher and Adobe InDesign?

For budget-conscious creatives, the main advantage of Affinity Publisher is that it’s excellent value, retailing at just £48.99 (around $64 and AU$87) for the single app download. Users aren’t tied into a subscription model, an irritant for some Adobe users. 

Publisher’s competitive price will make it a serious competitor on price point with Adobe, which offers InDesign CC at a subscription price only, with the single app costing users $19.99 a month. 

In terms of usability, Affinity Publisher owes a great deal to InDesign in terms of functionality and interface. Superficially, the differences between the two are minor, and it really comes down to which program you feel most comfortable with using. 

We took Affinity Publisher for a test drive to see how it compares to InDesign and how it functions as a publishing program. Read on to discover our thoughts on Publisher, and assess whether you should make the switch from InDesign.

What’s Good About Affinity Publisher?

It’s Adaptable for Modern Web Design

The latest release of InDesign CC has certainly improved the web and ePublishing design experience for users, with better capabilities for setting up web-friendly layouts and exporting to interactive formats. However, it appears that Affinity Publisher has put the modern web design process at the heart of its design. 

You can choose from a wide range of screen size options, which include all mass-market up-to-date devices. You can also choose to design specifically for Web or Devices, each of which contains a wide range of pre-saved formats to choose from, including an updated catalog of iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Nexus and Kindle screen sizes. 

screen sizes

It’s More Flexible Than InDesign… in Some Ways

Because InDesign is built on foundations which preceded web design, stemming from the technology developed by Quark for the first layout publishing program, QuarkXPress, it is still a traditional print publishing program at heart. 

Publisher by contrast, though inspired by the InDesign interface, doesn’t have the same historical legacy, and there are some features of the program which feel more relevant for how designers work now. 

One example is the ability to set a facing page document to begin on a left-hand page. Sure, this isn’t what you’d want to choose for a traditional multi-page document like a print book or magazine, but there are occasions where you might want to start your document with a two-page spread, like eMagazines or interactive PDFs, for example.

left page start

It’s Speedier and Lighter Than InDesign

One of the main complaints with InDesign is the processing power of the software. It’s a very heavy program, which can have an impact on usability, particularly if you’re working on a laptop rather than a desktop. Switching the Display Performance in InDesign to Fast Display can solve the problem, but it also means you have to do the bulk of your work while looking at heavily pixelated images. 

Publisher is a heavy program too, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. It’s whippet-quick, even when I was trying it out on my ancient laptop, which struggles to open InDesign in less than 15 minutes. 

Images in Publisher remain crisp and clear, which helps you to assess the quality of images accurately while you work. 

image quality

An extra bonus—I had no issues with stalling or crashing, which was an almost daily occurrence when I was working with InDesign CS6 and a monthly occurrence with InDesign CC. 

If You’re an InDesign User, It Feels Intuitive

Serif has mimicked the InDesign interface in Publisher for good reason, in the hope of converting committed InDesign users. 

If you’re a seasoned InDesign user, the Publisher interface will feel very familiar, with the tools panel docked to the left and the most-used panels, including Color, Swatches, and Stroke, docked in their usual position to the right. 

The Pages panel has been shifted to the left, but personally this feels like an improvement on InDesign’s default docking of the same panel to the right of the screen.

interface overview

It Has a Useful Clipboard Feature, 'Assets’

Clipboards are really useful for producing designs that use repeated visual content (such as company logos) or specific sets of icons (such as emojis or UI icons).

Affinity has a handy clipboard function called Assets, which is docked on the left side of the interface, alongside the Pages panel. 

It’s quick and easy to create your own library of asset categories, allowing you to access essential images in an instant. Particularly handy for designers working with brand identities.

assets panel

What’s Not So Good About Affinity Publisher?

Publisher has been tightened up significantly since the beta release, and Serif have obviously benefitted from inviting users to share their thoughts and feedback on the beta version.  

Generally, Publisher is a well-rounded program with all the major features InDesign users would be accustomed to. However, it is admittedly better value than InDesign for a reason—it is overall a less sophisticated program that lacks some of the advanced features InDesign users enjoy.

Here are just a few of the issues I encountered in my (albeit Publisher novice) experience with the program.

Some of the Options in Publisher Are Not Immediately Obvious

Many of Publisher’s 'flaws’ are more to do with the difference between the Publisher and InDesign interfaces. Generally I found I had to take more steps to complete the same action in Publisher, but this is unlikely to bother users who are new to InDesign and Publisher.

In the beta version of Publisher, in the New Document window, the Color Format of the document was not automatically adjusted to the corresponding document Type, but this has since been rectified in the full release.

What is a little different is that the Layout, Color, Margins and Bleed options are organised into separate tabs in the window, meaning that it could be easy to forget to set or check these settings before creating a new document.

new document

For observant (and wide awake designers) this is a minor issue, but there’s something intrinsically helpful about InDesign’s New Document window containing everything you need in one place.

Where’s the Snap?

One of the really nice, but probably under-appreciated, features of InDesign is the ability of the program to ‘snap’ the edges of frames and shapes to other objects. For example, if you’re trying to get two text frames perfectly lined up, InDesign senses what you’re trying to do and produces a ‘snap’ movement and colored line to help guide the frame into position. 

By default, InDesign introduces the snap feature, making it instantly easy-peasy to line up the edges of text and image frames.

Publisher doesn’t apply a snap automatically, but as seems to be the case with most things in Publisher, you just need to do a bit of hunting around and apply the desired effect manually. You can switch on snapping in Publisher by going to View > Snapping Manager and checking Enable snapping.

enable snapping

Affinity Publisher: Our Verdict

If you’re looking for a good value alternative to Adobe InDesign, Affinity Publisher is a no-brainer. 

For marketers needing to create certain items in-house or designers looking to pick up new publishing design skills, Publisher is a budget-friendly and intuitive way to hone your skills and create a wide range of layout media, from magazines to books. For budding web designers, there’s also plenty on offer for creating layouts for websites, apps and EPUBs too.

If you’re a committed InDesign user, you might find it initially difficult to make the switch to Affinity Publisher, as the latter lacks some of the sophistication and advanced features of the former. Publisher can feel a little clumsy in comparison, but this impression quickly diminishes the more time spent using the application.

publisher interface

All in all, Affinity Publisher is shaping up to be a serious rival for InDesign, competing on both value for money and functionality. So watch this space! 

We’d love to know your thoughts on Affinity Publisher. Are you a Publisher convert or die-hard InDesign fan? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. 

Discover thousands of assets to use in your layout designs, from fonts to photos, over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver.

Check out more reviews of Affinity programs and suggestions for alternative design software:

Web Tools

How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Post pobrano z: How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image
What You’ll Be Creating

Today you will learn how to create an isometric perspective grid in Adobe Photoshop. To make a nice isometric view illustration, we will add some photo textures.

If you’re in a hurry and looking for some ready-made isometric icons to use in your projects (along with many other awesome types of isometric vectors), read this article:

Tutorial Assets

To complete the tutorial, you will need the following assets:

1. How to Make an Isometric Grid

Step 1

First of all, we need to add an isometric grid to our canvas. You can find instructions for this in the isometric tutorial we published earlier.

Isometric grid

Step 2

Based on the grid, draw a rectangle vector shape on the isometric surface. You can use any color, because this is just a guide for our next photo manipulation process.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 3

Duplicate the vector shape by clicking Control-J, and move it upward.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 4

From now on, you can turn off the grid, because we won’t be needing it anymore.

Turning off the isometric grid

2. How to Build the Soil

Step 1

Draw the left side of the 3D map using the Pen Tool. Double-click its layer shape and then add a Gradient Overlay.

Drawing left side of the shape
Layer style for Gradient Overlay
Left side with gradient overlay

Step 2

Set its Fill to 0%.

Set Fill to 0

Step 3

Repeat the same step on the other side.

Right side

Step 4

Draw a new shape using the Pen Tool, covering the whole map. Add a Gradient Overlay to the shape and then set its Fill to 0%.

Another Gradient Overlay
Layer style for Gradient Overlay

Step 5

Grab the soil texture and place it on top of the map.

Adding soil texture

Step 6

Control-click the left side of the map to make a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon in the lower part of the Layers panel to cut off the rock texture outside the shape.

Adding layer mask

Step 7

Repeat the same process on the other side of the map.

Add soil to the edge

3. How to Build the Hill

Step 1

Grab the hill landscape and overlay it on the map with low Opacity. Position it until you get a nice perspective.

Adding hill landscape

Step 2

Add a layer mask to the landscape photo and then paint with black to hide unwanted areas. In this case, I want to retain the street, the hill next to it, and the tree in the corner. Try to get a natural shape using your brush stroke. We don’t want this to be a flat, box-like shape.

Masking the landscape

Step 3

Let’s go back to the soil. We need to make it darker and more believable. Start by painting shadow on its corner. Add a new layer and simply paint black using the Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner

Step 4

The result is already much better. Keep on adding black shadow to the soil to make it a lot darker.

Adding black shadow to the soil
Adding black shadow to the soil

Step 5

Next, grab another dirt or soil texture. Paste it on top of the previous soil and set its mode to Overlay. Take your time, add a layer mask, and carefully insert any dirt, rocks, and roots into the soil to make it as realistic as possible.

Add another soil texture

Step 6

Let’s add another landscape image into the map. Place the landscape behind the current hill landscape. Add a layer mask to the landscape image and then paint black to remove most of its content while leaving part of its valley.

Add another landscape
Unneeded areas are now hidden

Step 7

Add a new layer and then paint shadow on areas of the new landscape as indicated below.

Add shadow

4. How to Add the Sea to the Isometric View

Step 1

Now, add the sea image behind the map. Position it where you like it most.

Adding sea image

Step 2

Control-click the base of the map to create a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon to hide unselected pixels.

Adding layer mask to the sea
Adding layer mask to the sea

Step 3

Manually fix broken elements in the landscape, if there are any, by painting them with white using a soft brush. In this case, do this with the rock.

Fixing broken rock

Step 4

To add more waves to the sea, we can simply duplicate the sea image and move it to a different position. Apply the same layer mask as the first one and then hide some of the areas until it blends with the first image.

Adding another part of the sea
Adding another layer mask

Step 5

Select the ocean by Control-clicking on its layer shape. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with Cooling Filter to increase the contrast of its blue sea surface.

Increase sea contrast
Adding Photo Filter

5. How to Add Details

Step 1

Let’s add more contrast into the scene manually. Start by selecting the main hill. Make a new layer on top of it and then click Edit > Stroke to add a stroke line.

Add contrast to the landscape edges
Adding black stroke
Adding black stroke

Step 2

Apply a Gaussian Blur filter to soften the line, and then reduce its Opacity setting in the Layers panel. If necessary, you can also delete a segment of the blurred line using the Eraser Tool.

Soften the stroke line

Step 3

Repeat this process, and add another shadow by painting with black on a new layer.

Add another shadow

Step 4

Let’s make the road more realistic by adding an unfinished street at the end. Activate the hill landscape layer and then paint with white to reveal a chunk of street hanging outside the map. Right underneath the street, paint black to add thickness to the street and then paint a big soft shadow on the soil.

Add broken street

Step 5

To make it appear more realistic, add a new layer and scribble some short black lines using the Pencil Tool with 1 px brush size on the street. Duplicate the layer, and invert its color to white by pressing Control-I. Move the white scribbles down 1 pixel. Reduce their Opacity setting in the Layers panel.

Make the street more realistic
Adding scribbles to the street
The result after adding scribbles to the street

Step 6

Add another shadow and highlight onto the scene by painting with black and white using a soft big brush with low Opacity.

Adding shadow and highlight

Step 7

Here’s the fun part. The map will not be complete until we have a small car on the empty street. You might notice that in our main landscape there’s a parked car. Select and then copy it to a new layer (Control-J). Place it on the street, add a layer mask, and then hide unneeded pixels by painting them with black.

Adding car
Adding car
Car added

6. How to Add the Background

Step 1

We will use a simple background for this map. Activate the Gradient Tool with a standard white to black gradient. Drag from top to bottom until we have this background.

Add white to black gradient for background

Step 2

Let’s add a shadow underneath the map. Control-click the base to make a new selection. Fill it with black, deselect (Control-D), and then apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to soften it. Repeat this process a few times with different Radius settings and layer Opacity until we have a realistic floor.

Adding map shadow
Adding map shadow

Step 3

We may need to draw shadow manually by painting black on the canvas using a big soft Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Adding map shadow

Step 4

This grey background is just too dull. Let’s make it more interesting by changing its color to blue. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer above the background and select Cooling Filter.

Adding photo filter adjustment

Conclusion

Now, we have reached the final result. As you can see, there are no complicated tricks in this tutorial. We only used a simple layer mask and a bit of manual drawing. We made cool isometric perspective illustration in Adobe Photoshop.

I believe that it is important to select the best landscape photos—by doing this, we save ourselves from time-consuming photo editing and can focus on working with the map shape. I hope you understand this tutorial and can follow it easily. If you do follow along, let me know your result. I’d love to see it. Thanks.

Final result

Check out some other awesome tutorials with step-by-step cool isometric view illustrations and our articles about this type of design!

Web Tools

How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Post pobrano z: How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image
What You’ll Be Creating

Today you will learn how to create an isometric perspective grid in Adobe Photoshop. To make a nice isometric view illustration, we will add some photo textures.

If you’re in a hurry and looking for some ready-made isometric icons to use in your projects (along with many other awesome types of isometric vectors), read this article:

Tutorial Assets

To complete the tutorial, you will need the following assets:

1. How to Make an Isometric Grid

Step 1

First of all, we need to add an isometric grid to our canvas. You can find instructions for this in the isometric tutorial we published earlier.

Isometric grid

Step 2

Based on the grid, draw a rectangle vector shape on the isometric surface. You can use any color, because this is just a guide for our next photo manipulation process.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 3

Duplicate the vector shape by clicking Control-J, and move it upward.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 4

From now on, you can turn off the grid, because we won’t be needing it anymore.

Turning off the isometric grid

2. How to Build the Soil

Step 1

Draw the left side of the 3D map using the Pen Tool. Double-click its layer shape and then add a Gradient Overlay.

Drawing left side of the shape
Layer style for Gradient Overlay
Left side with gradient overlay

Step 2

Set its Fill to 0%.

Set Fill to 0

Step 3

Repeat the same step on the other side.

Right side

Step 4

Draw a new shape using the Pen Tool, covering the whole map. Add a Gradient Overlay to the shape and then set its Fill to 0%.

Another Gradient Overlay
Layer style for Gradient Overlay

Step 5

Grab the soil texture and place it on top of the map.

Adding soil texture

Step 6

Control-click the left side of the map to make a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon in the lower part of the Layers panel to cut off the rock texture outside the shape.

Adding layer mask

Step 7

Repeat the same process on the other side of the map.

Add soil to the edge

3. How to Build the Hill

Step 1

Grab the hill landscape and overlay it on the map with low Opacity. Position it until you get a nice perspective.

Adding hill landscape

Step 2

Add a layer mask to the landscape photo and then paint with black to hide unwanted areas. In this case, I want to retain the street, the hill next to it, and the tree in the corner. Try to get a natural shape using your brush stroke. We don’t want this to be a flat, box-like shape.

Masking the landscape

Step 3

Let’s go back to the soil. We need to make it darker and more believable. Start by painting shadow on its corner. Add a new layer and simply paint black using the Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner

Step 4

The result is already much better. Keep on adding black shadow to the soil to make it a lot darker.

Adding black shadow to the soil
Adding black shadow to the soil

Step 5

Next, grab another dirt or soil texture. Paste it on top of the previous soil and set its mode to Overlay. Take your time, add a layer mask, and carefully insert any dirt, rocks, and roots into the soil to make it as realistic as possible.

Add another soil texture

Step 6

Let’s add another landscape image into the map. Place the landscape behind the current hill landscape. Add a layer mask to the landscape image and then paint black to remove most of its content while leaving part of its valley.

Add another landscape
Unneeded areas are now hidden

Step 7

Add a new layer and then paint shadow on areas of the new landscape as indicated below.

Add shadow

4. How to Add the Sea to the Isometric View

Step 1

Now, add the sea image behind the map. Position it where you like it most.

Adding sea image

Step 2

Control-click the base of the map to create a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon to hide unselected pixels.

Adding layer mask to the sea
Adding layer mask to the sea

Step 3

Manually fix broken elements in the landscape, if there are any, by painting them with white using a soft brush. In this case, do this with the rock.

Fixing broken rock

Step 4

To add more waves to the sea, we can simply duplicate the sea image and move it to a different position. Apply the same layer mask as the first one and then hide some of the areas until it blends with the first image.

Adding another part of the sea
Adding another layer mask

Step 5

Select the ocean by Control-clicking on its layer shape. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with Cooling Filter to increase the contrast of its blue sea surface.

Increase sea contrast
Adding Photo Filter

5. How to Add Details

Step 1

Let’s add more contrast into the scene manually. Start by selecting the main hill. Make a new layer on top of it and then click Edit > Stroke to add a stroke line.

Add contrast to the landscape edges
Adding black stroke
Adding black stroke

Step 2

Apply a Gaussian Blur filter to soften the line, and then reduce its Opacity setting in the Layers panel. If necessary, you can also delete a segment of the blurred line using the Eraser Tool.

Soften the stroke line

Step 3

Repeat this process, and add another shadow by painting with black on a new layer.

Add another shadow

Step 4

Let’s make the road more realistic by adding an unfinished street at the end. Activate the hill landscape layer and then paint with white to reveal a chunk of street hanging outside the map. Right underneath the street, paint black to add thickness to the street and then paint a big soft shadow on the soil.

Add broken street

Step 5

To make it appear more realistic, add a new layer and scribble some short black lines using the Pencil Tool with 1 px brush size on the street. Duplicate the layer, and invert its color to white by pressing Control-I. Move the white scribbles down 1 pixel. Reduce their Opacity setting in the Layers panel.

Make the street more realistic
Adding scribbles to the street
The result after adding scribbles to the street

Step 6

Add another shadow and highlight onto the scene by painting with black and white using a soft big brush with low Opacity.

Adding shadow and highlight

Step 7

Here’s the fun part. The map will not be complete until we have a small car on the empty street. You might notice that in our main landscape there’s a parked car. Select and then copy it to a new layer (Control-J). Place it on the street, add a layer mask, and then hide unneeded pixels by painting them with black.

Adding car
Adding car
Car added

6. How to Add the Background

Step 1

We will use a simple background for this map. Activate the Gradient Tool with a standard white to black gradient. Drag from top to bottom until we have this background.

Add white to black gradient for background

Step 2

Let’s add a shadow underneath the map. Control-click the base to make a new selection. Fill it with black, deselect (Control-D), and then apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to soften it. Repeat this process a few times with different Radius settings and layer Opacity until we have a realistic floor.

Adding map shadow
Adding map shadow

Step 3

We may need to draw shadow manually by painting black on the canvas using a big soft Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Adding map shadow

Step 4

This grey background is just too dull. Let’s make it more interesting by changing its color to blue. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer above the background and select Cooling Filter.

Adding photo filter adjustment

Conclusion

Now, we have reached the final result. As you can see, there are no complicated tricks in this tutorial. We only used a simple layer mask and a bit of manual drawing. We made cool isometric perspective illustration in Adobe Photoshop.

I believe that it is important to select the best landscape photos—by doing this, we save ourselves from time-consuming photo editing and can focus on working with the map shape. I hope you understand this tutorial and can follow it easily. If you do follow along, let me know your result. I’d love to see it. Thanks.

Final result

Check out some other awesome tutorials with step-by-step cool isometric view illustrations and our articles about this type of design!

Web Tools

How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Post pobrano z: How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image
What You’ll Be Creating

Today you will learn how to create an isometric perspective grid in Adobe Photoshop. To make a nice isometric view illustration, we will add some photo textures.

If you’re in a hurry and looking for some ready-made isometric icons to use in your projects (along with many other awesome types of isometric vectors), read this article:

Tutorial Assets

To complete the tutorial, you will need the following assets:

1. How to Make an Isometric Grid

Step 1

First of all, we need to add an isometric grid to our canvas. You can find instructions for this in the isometric tutorial we published earlier.

Isometric grid

Step 2

Based on the grid, draw a rectangle vector shape on the isometric surface. You can use any color, because this is just a guide for our next photo manipulation process.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 3

Duplicate the vector shape by clicking Control-J, and move it upward.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 4

From now on, you can turn off the grid, because we won’t be needing it anymore.

Turning off the isometric grid

2. How to Build the Soil

Step 1

Draw the left side of the 3D map using the Pen Tool. Double-click its layer shape and then add a Gradient Overlay.

Drawing left side of the shape
Layer style for Gradient Overlay
Left side with gradient overlay

Step 2

Set its Fill to 0%.

Set Fill to 0

Step 3

Repeat the same step on the other side.

Right side

Step 4

Draw a new shape using the Pen Tool, covering the whole map. Add a Gradient Overlay to the shape and then set its Fill to 0%.

Another Gradient Overlay
Layer style for Gradient Overlay

Step 5

Grab the soil texture and place it on top of the map.

Adding soil texture

Step 6

Control-click the left side of the map to make a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon in the lower part of the Layers panel to cut off the rock texture outside the shape.

Adding layer mask

Step 7

Repeat the same process on the other side of the map.

Add soil to the edge

3. How to Build the Hill

Step 1

Grab the hill landscape and overlay it on the map with low Opacity. Position it until you get a nice perspective.

Adding hill landscape

Step 2

Add a layer mask to the landscape photo and then paint with black to hide unwanted areas. In this case, I want to retain the street, the hill next to it, and the tree in the corner. Try to get a natural shape using your brush stroke. We don’t want this to be a flat, box-like shape.

Masking the landscape

Step 3

Let’s go back to the soil. We need to make it darker and more believable. Start by painting shadow on its corner. Add a new layer and simply paint black using the Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner

Step 4

The result is already much better. Keep on adding black shadow to the soil to make it a lot darker.

Adding black shadow to the soil
Adding black shadow to the soil

Step 5

Next, grab another dirt or soil texture. Paste it on top of the previous soil and set its mode to Overlay. Take your time, add a layer mask, and carefully insert any dirt, rocks, and roots into the soil to make it as realistic as possible.

Add another soil texture

Step 6

Let’s add another landscape image into the map. Place the landscape behind the current hill landscape. Add a layer mask to the landscape image and then paint black to remove most of its content while leaving part of its valley.

Add another landscape
Unneeded areas are now hidden

Step 7

Add a new layer and then paint shadow on areas of the new landscape as indicated below.

Add shadow

4. How to Add the Sea to the Isometric View

Step 1

Now, add the sea image behind the map. Position it where you like it most.

Adding sea image

Step 2

Control-click the base of the map to create a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon to hide unselected pixels.

Adding layer mask to the sea
Adding layer mask to the sea

Step 3

Manually fix broken elements in the landscape, if there are any, by painting them with white using a soft brush. In this case, do this with the rock.

Fixing broken rock

Step 4

To add more waves to the sea, we can simply duplicate the sea image and move it to a different position. Apply the same layer mask as the first one and then hide some of the areas until it blends with the first image.

Adding another part of the sea
Adding another layer mask

Step 5

Select the ocean by Control-clicking on its layer shape. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with Cooling Filter to increase the contrast of its blue sea surface.

Increase sea contrast
Adding Photo Filter

5. How to Add Details

Step 1

Let’s add more contrast into the scene manually. Start by selecting the main hill. Make a new layer on top of it and then click Edit > Stroke to add a stroke line.

Add contrast to the landscape edges
Adding black stroke
Adding black stroke

Step 2

Apply a Gaussian Blur filter to soften the line, and then reduce its Opacity setting in the Layers panel. If necessary, you can also delete a segment of the blurred line using the Eraser Tool.

Soften the stroke line

Step 3

Repeat this process, and add another shadow by painting with black on a new layer.

Add another shadow

Step 4

Let’s make the road more realistic by adding an unfinished street at the end. Activate the hill landscape layer and then paint with white to reveal a chunk of street hanging outside the map. Right underneath the street, paint black to add thickness to the street and then paint a big soft shadow on the soil.

Add broken street

Step 5

To make it appear more realistic, add a new layer and scribble some short black lines using the Pencil Tool with 1 px brush size on the street. Duplicate the layer, and invert its color to white by pressing Control-I. Move the white scribbles down 1 pixel. Reduce their Opacity setting in the Layers panel.

Make the street more realistic
Adding scribbles to the street
The result after adding scribbles to the street

Step 6

Add another shadow and highlight onto the scene by painting with black and white using a soft big brush with low Opacity.

Adding shadow and highlight

Step 7

Here’s the fun part. The map will not be complete until we have a small car on the empty street. You might notice that in our main landscape there’s a parked car. Select and then copy it to a new layer (Control-J). Place it on the street, add a layer mask, and then hide unneeded pixels by painting them with black.

Adding car
Adding car
Car added

6. How to Add the Background

Step 1

We will use a simple background for this map. Activate the Gradient Tool with a standard white to black gradient. Drag from top to bottom until we have this background.

Add white to black gradient for background

Step 2

Let’s add a shadow underneath the map. Control-click the base to make a new selection. Fill it with black, deselect (Control-D), and then apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to soften it. Repeat this process a few times with different Radius settings and layer Opacity until we have a realistic floor.

Adding map shadow
Adding map shadow

Step 3

We may need to draw shadow manually by painting black on the canvas using a big soft Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Adding map shadow

Step 4

This grey background is just too dull. Let’s make it more interesting by changing its color to blue. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer above the background and select Cooling Filter.

Adding photo filter adjustment

Conclusion

Now, we have reached the final result. As you can see, there are no complicated tricks in this tutorial. We only used a simple layer mask and a bit of manual drawing. We made cool isometric perspective illustration in Adobe Photoshop.

I believe that it is important to select the best landscape photos—by doing this, we save ourselves from time-consuming photo editing and can focus on working with the map shape. I hope you understand this tutorial and can follow it easily. If you do follow along, let me know your result. I’d love to see it. Thanks.

Final result

Check out some other awesome tutorials with step-by-step cool isometric view illustrations and our articles about this type of design!

Web Tools

How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Post pobrano z: How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image
What You’ll Be Creating

Today you will learn how to create an isometric perspective grid in Adobe Photoshop. To make a nice isometric view illustration, we will add some photo textures.

If you’re in a hurry and looking for some ready-made isometric icons to use in your projects (along with many other awesome types of isometric vectors), read this article:

Tutorial Assets

To complete the tutorial, you will need the following assets:

1. How to Make an Isometric Grid

Step 1

First of all, we need to add an isometric grid to our canvas. You can find instructions for this in the isometric tutorial we published earlier.

Isometric grid

Step 2

Based on the grid, draw a rectangle vector shape on the isometric surface. You can use any color, because this is just a guide for our next photo manipulation process.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 3

Duplicate the vector shape by clicking Control-J, and move it upward.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 4

From now on, you can turn off the grid, because we won’t be needing it anymore.

Turning off the isometric grid

2. How to Build the Soil

Step 1

Draw the left side of the 3D map using the Pen Tool. Double-click its layer shape and then add a Gradient Overlay.

Drawing left side of the shape
Layer style for Gradient Overlay
Left side with gradient overlay

Step 2

Set its Fill to 0%.

Set Fill to 0

Step 3

Repeat the same step on the other side.

Right side

Step 4

Draw a new shape using the Pen Tool, covering the whole map. Add a Gradient Overlay to the shape and then set its Fill to 0%.

Another Gradient Overlay
Layer style for Gradient Overlay

Step 5

Grab the soil texture and place it on top of the map.

Adding soil texture

Step 6

Control-click the left side of the map to make a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon in the lower part of the Layers panel to cut off the rock texture outside the shape.

Adding layer mask

Step 7

Repeat the same process on the other side of the map.

Add soil to the edge

3. How to Build the Hill

Step 1

Grab the hill landscape and overlay it on the map with low Opacity. Position it until you get a nice perspective.

Adding hill landscape

Step 2

Add a layer mask to the landscape photo and then paint with black to hide unwanted areas. In this case, I want to retain the street, the hill next to it, and the tree in the corner. Try to get a natural shape using your brush stroke. We don’t want this to be a flat, box-like shape.

Masking the landscape

Step 3

Let’s go back to the soil. We need to make it darker and more believable. Start by painting shadow on its corner. Add a new layer and simply paint black using the Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner

Step 4

The result is already much better. Keep on adding black shadow to the soil to make it a lot darker.

Adding black shadow to the soil
Adding black shadow to the soil

Step 5

Next, grab another dirt or soil texture. Paste it on top of the previous soil and set its mode to Overlay. Take your time, add a layer mask, and carefully insert any dirt, rocks, and roots into the soil to make it as realistic as possible.

Add another soil texture

Step 6

Let’s add another landscape image into the map. Place the landscape behind the current hill landscape. Add a layer mask to the landscape image and then paint black to remove most of its content while leaving part of its valley.

Add another landscape
Unneeded areas are now hidden

Step 7

Add a new layer and then paint shadow on areas of the new landscape as indicated below.

Add shadow

4. How to Add the Sea to the Isometric View

Step 1

Now, add the sea image behind the map. Position it where you like it most.

Adding sea image

Step 2

Control-click the base of the map to create a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon to hide unselected pixels.

Adding layer mask to the sea
Adding layer mask to the sea

Step 3

Manually fix broken elements in the landscape, if there are any, by painting them with white using a soft brush. In this case, do this with the rock.

Fixing broken rock

Step 4

To add more waves to the sea, we can simply duplicate the sea image and move it to a different position. Apply the same layer mask as the first one and then hide some of the areas until it blends with the first image.

Adding another part of the sea
Adding another layer mask

Step 5

Select the ocean by Control-clicking on its layer shape. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with Cooling Filter to increase the contrast of its blue sea surface.

Increase sea contrast
Adding Photo Filter

5. How to Add Details

Step 1

Let’s add more contrast into the scene manually. Start by selecting the main hill. Make a new layer on top of it and then click Edit > Stroke to add a stroke line.

Add contrast to the landscape edges
Adding black stroke
Adding black stroke

Step 2

Apply a Gaussian Blur filter to soften the line, and then reduce its Opacity setting in the Layers panel. If necessary, you can also delete a segment of the blurred line using the Eraser Tool.

Soften the stroke line

Step 3

Repeat this process, and add another shadow by painting with black on a new layer.

Add another shadow

Step 4

Let’s make the road more realistic by adding an unfinished street at the end. Activate the hill landscape layer and then paint with white to reveal a chunk of street hanging outside the map. Right underneath the street, paint black to add thickness to the street and then paint a big soft shadow on the soil.

Add broken street

Step 5

To make it appear more realistic, add a new layer and scribble some short black lines using the Pencil Tool with 1 px brush size on the street. Duplicate the layer, and invert its color to white by pressing Control-I. Move the white scribbles down 1 pixel. Reduce their Opacity setting in the Layers panel.

Make the street more realistic
Adding scribbles to the street
The result after adding scribbles to the street

Step 6

Add another shadow and highlight onto the scene by painting with black and white using a soft big brush with low Opacity.

Adding shadow and highlight

Step 7

Here’s the fun part. The map will not be complete until we have a small car on the empty street. You might notice that in our main landscape there’s a parked car. Select and then copy it to a new layer (Control-J). Place it on the street, add a layer mask, and then hide unneeded pixels by painting them with black.

Adding car
Adding car
Car added

6. How to Add the Background

Step 1

We will use a simple background for this map. Activate the Gradient Tool with a standard white to black gradient. Drag from top to bottom until we have this background.

Add white to black gradient for background

Step 2

Let’s add a shadow underneath the map. Control-click the base to make a new selection. Fill it with black, deselect (Control-D), and then apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to soften it. Repeat this process a few times with different Radius settings and layer Opacity until we have a realistic floor.

Adding map shadow
Adding map shadow

Step 3

We may need to draw shadow manually by painting black on the canvas using a big soft Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Adding map shadow

Step 4

This grey background is just too dull. Let’s make it more interesting by changing its color to blue. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer above the background and select Cooling Filter.

Adding photo filter adjustment

Conclusion

Now, we have reached the final result. As you can see, there are no complicated tricks in this tutorial. We only used a simple layer mask and a bit of manual drawing. We made cool isometric perspective illustration in Adobe Photoshop.

I believe that it is important to select the best landscape photos—by doing this, we save ourselves from time-consuming photo editing and can focus on working with the map shape. I hope you understand this tutorial and can follow it easily. If you do follow along, let me know your result. I’d love to see it. Thanks.

Final result

Check out some other awesome tutorials with step-by-step cool isometric view illustrations and our articles about this type of design!

Web Tools

How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Post pobrano z: How to Turn a Landscape Photograph Into an Isometric Icon in Adobe Photoshop

Final product image
What You’ll Be Creating

Today you will learn how to create an isometric perspective grid in Adobe Photoshop. To make a nice isometric view illustration, we will add some photo textures.

If you’re in a hurry and looking for some ready-made isometric icons to use in your projects (along with many other awesome types of isometric vectors), read this article:

Tutorial Assets

To complete the tutorial, you will need the following assets:

1. How to Make an Isometric Grid

Step 1

First of all, we need to add an isometric grid to our canvas. You can find instructions for this in the isometric tutorial we published earlier.

Isometric grid

Step 2

Based on the grid, draw a rectangle vector shape on the isometric surface. You can use any color, because this is just a guide for our next photo manipulation process.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 3

Duplicate the vector shape by clicking Control-J, and move it upward.

Draw basic map shape in isometric perspective

Step 4

From now on, you can turn off the grid, because we won’t be needing it anymore.

Turning off the isometric grid

2. How to Build the Soil

Step 1

Draw the left side of the 3D map using the Pen Tool. Double-click its layer shape and then add a Gradient Overlay.

Drawing left side of the shape
Layer style for Gradient Overlay
Left side with gradient overlay

Step 2

Set its Fill to 0%.

Set Fill to 0

Step 3

Repeat the same step on the other side.

Right side

Step 4

Draw a new shape using the Pen Tool, covering the whole map. Add a Gradient Overlay to the shape and then set its Fill to 0%.

Another Gradient Overlay
Layer style for Gradient Overlay

Step 5

Grab the soil texture and place it on top of the map.

Adding soil texture

Step 6

Control-click the left side of the map to make a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon in the lower part of the Layers panel to cut off the rock texture outside the shape.

Adding layer mask

Step 7

Repeat the same process on the other side of the map.

Add soil to the edge

3. How to Build the Hill

Step 1

Grab the hill landscape and overlay it on the map with low Opacity. Position it until you get a nice perspective.

Adding hill landscape

Step 2

Add a layer mask to the landscape photo and then paint with black to hide unwanted areas. In this case, I want to retain the street, the hill next to it, and the tree in the corner. Try to get a natural shape using your brush stroke. We don’t want this to be a flat, box-like shape.

Masking the landscape

Step 3

Let’s go back to the soil. We need to make it darker and more believable. Start by painting shadow on its corner. Add a new layer and simply paint black using the Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner
Painting shadow on maps corner

Step 4

The result is already much better. Keep on adding black shadow to the soil to make it a lot darker.

Adding black shadow to the soil
Adding black shadow to the soil

Step 5

Next, grab another dirt or soil texture. Paste it on top of the previous soil and set its mode to Overlay. Take your time, add a layer mask, and carefully insert any dirt, rocks, and roots into the soil to make it as realistic as possible.

Add another soil texture

Step 6

Let’s add another landscape image into the map. Place the landscape behind the current hill landscape. Add a layer mask to the landscape image and then paint black to remove most of its content while leaving part of its valley.

Add another landscape
Unneeded areas are now hidden

Step 7

Add a new layer and then paint shadow on areas of the new landscape as indicated below.

Add shadow

4. How to Add the Sea to the Isometric View

Step 1

Now, add the sea image behind the map. Position it where you like it most.

Adding sea image

Step 2

Control-click the base of the map to create a new selection based on its shape. Click the Add layer mask icon to hide unselected pixels.

Adding layer mask to the sea
Adding layer mask to the sea

Step 3

Manually fix broken elements in the landscape, if there are any, by painting them with white using a soft brush. In this case, do this with the rock.

Fixing broken rock

Step 4

To add more waves to the sea, we can simply duplicate the sea image and move it to a different position. Apply the same layer mask as the first one and then hide some of the areas until it blends with the first image.

Adding another part of the sea
Adding another layer mask

Step 5

Select the ocean by Control-clicking on its layer shape. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer with Cooling Filter to increase the contrast of its blue sea surface.

Increase sea contrast
Adding Photo Filter

5. How to Add Details

Step 1

Let’s add more contrast into the scene manually. Start by selecting the main hill. Make a new layer on top of it and then click Edit > Stroke to add a stroke line.

Add contrast to the landscape edges
Adding black stroke
Adding black stroke

Step 2

Apply a Gaussian Blur filter to soften the line, and then reduce its Opacity setting in the Layers panel. If necessary, you can also delete a segment of the blurred line using the Eraser Tool.

Soften the stroke line

Step 3

Repeat this process, and add another shadow by painting with black on a new layer.

Add another shadow

Step 4

Let’s make the road more realistic by adding an unfinished street at the end. Activate the hill landscape layer and then paint with white to reveal a chunk of street hanging outside the map. Right underneath the street, paint black to add thickness to the street and then paint a big soft shadow on the soil.

Add broken street

Step 5

To make it appear more realistic, add a new layer and scribble some short black lines using the Pencil Tool with 1 px brush size on the street. Duplicate the layer, and invert its color to white by pressing Control-I. Move the white scribbles down 1 pixel. Reduce their Opacity setting in the Layers panel.

Make the street more realistic
Adding scribbles to the street
The result after adding scribbles to the street

Step 6

Add another shadow and highlight onto the scene by painting with black and white using a soft big brush with low Opacity.

Adding shadow and highlight

Step 7

Here’s the fun part. The map will not be complete until we have a small car on the empty street. You might notice that in our main landscape there’s a parked car. Select and then copy it to a new layer (Control-J). Place it on the street, add a layer mask, and then hide unneeded pixels by painting them with black.

Adding car
Adding car
Car added

6. How to Add the Background

Step 1

We will use a simple background for this map. Activate the Gradient Tool with a standard white to black gradient. Drag from top to bottom until we have this background.

Add white to black gradient for background

Step 2

Let’s add a shadow underneath the map. Control-click the base to make a new selection. Fill it with black, deselect (Control-D), and then apply a Gaussian Blur filter (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to soften it. Repeat this process a few times with different Radius settings and layer Opacity until we have a realistic floor.

Adding map shadow
Adding map shadow

Step 3

We may need to draw shadow manually by painting black on the canvas using a big soft Brush Tool with low Opacity.

Adding map shadow

Step 4

This grey background is just too dull. Let’s make it more interesting by changing its color to blue. Add a Photo Filter Adjustment Layer above the background and select Cooling Filter.

Adding photo filter adjustment

Conclusion

Now, we have reached the final result. As you can see, there are no complicated tricks in this tutorial. We only used a simple layer mask and a bit of manual drawing. We made cool isometric perspective illustration in Adobe Photoshop.

I believe that it is important to select the best landscape photos—by doing this, we save ourselves from time-consuming photo editing and can focus on working with the map shape. I hope you understand this tutorial and can follow it easily. If you do follow along, let me know your result. I’d love to see it. Thanks.

Final result

Check out some other awesome tutorials with step-by-step cool isometric view illustrations and our articles about this type of design!