Relief Shading

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Last update:
15/11/2006

RASTER GRAPHICS SOFTWARE (PHOTOSHOP)

Photoshop is the standard software for raster image manipulation. It is also the most full featured application for manually drawing shaded relief from scratch or for enhancing and correcting analytical relief generated from digital elevation models.

Contours for St. Denis Relief of St. Denis by H. Leuzinger
St. Denis in color by H. Leuzinger St. Denis Combination by H. Leuzinger

Experimental colored relief shading with Photoshop by Heinz Leuzinger. Area of La Gruyère, Switzerland. © Institute of Cartography, ETH Zurich.

Drawing shaded relief with Photoshop (or with another raster software application) rather than with traditional pencil or ink has the following advantages:

  • The possibility of making multiple corrections to the same area.
  • Every production step is "undoable".
  • Simultaneously viewing multiple cartographic base layers (contour lines, the river network and other structure lines) with the shaded relief.
  • Shorter production time.

Tom Patterson provided us with a short animation showing the process of relief shading with Photoshop.

QuickTime required to view this animation.

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