User blog:FedexWI/HOW TO MAP ON PAINT.NET 101

So yeah, paint.net IS the easiest program to use when mapping, because it has a MS paint flow, but with more tools and hotkeys, so yeah, now i'm going to explain to you, whoever that's reading, how to use this tool.

101
By set up the program i don't mean download, i mean accustom it to your style, for mapping, anti-aislasing ALWAYS needs to be disabled. Proceeding, the next thing in our list is learning how to use our tools and their shortcuts for a quicker use, the Lasso tool, for example, is really useful when colouring ; take for example, the Greek islands in the Aegean sea, but remember ; this needs to be combined with the Paint Bucket with flood mode on Global, see ; Now then; this should make it way easier to you to get started, when mapping wars, you have the recolor tool or the pencil tool the fill in the occupied land ; i prefer the pencil one, it's more precise and looks less blob-ish, this written tutorial is quite short ; as you can see, the program is really easy to use, but im going to say some tips and tricks to use the program properly and not come up with disasters.

LAYERS
Oh, look at this beauty of a project i was working on:, as you can see, i have several layers set up, this is a WAY more advanced layer set-up, which you should be able to complete at the end of this guide, if you experiment enough afterwards. So let's go simple and take a look at my AFOW As you can see, i have only four layers, one for the infobox (box for short), one for the divsions (optional, i use it as a cheat to draw proper borders) and the names, so they don't disturb if they're in the seas/i'm mapping a war, and the main layer, where you'll draw all movements, in the simplest of layer-based maps, you'll only need two layers, names, and base, This is quite easy to comprehend as you're reading this.

USUAL MISTAKES
Anti-Aislasing, i already explained, something i'd like to cover is how to erase borders, and it'll be quick, just use the pencil tool with the colour of the region ( use the colour picker ) and cut off the two ends of the border, and it should be gone if it isn't a one-pixel border, in which case you'll have to repeat the progress, but it doesn't take that much.

Prologue
So yeah, that's all you pretty much need to know before starting to map in paint.net, remember to experiment with the layers, with adjustemends and effects to them, you'll come up with some great coastlines or oceans with those, or some dope ground effects, i'll let you to experiment, keep thinking of something dope and someday you'll achieve it, Best of luck!