How do I create a map symbol from an aerial foto?

[Merion]

There a plenty of freely available map symbols to be found, but sometimes you need something unusual, not included in the normal map packs.

With drones everywhere, it's not hard to get aerial fotos of most things, but hyperrealistic 4k fotos do not really match most symbol sets. So I wondered, those of you who have created symbols before, do you apply any filters or whatnot other than just cropping out the needed part? And if so, what tools do you use? Photoshop? Gimp? Something else?

I thought I'd ask for some advice before blindly fumbling with filters I do not understand - I'm a complete noob at image editing.

[Caenwyr]

Which type of map are you thinking of here? You mentioned high-res drone imagery, are you working on a topographic map at a huge scale? Or rather the other end of the spectrum: a whole continent, with icons for the cities and little else?

For my maps, I usually draw my own icons, and I prefer to keep them as minimalist as possible: in regional maps I mostly go for dots and squares for the settlements, and everything else is drawn by hand, and in city maps I prefer to work with numbers that refer to a table on the side. But maybe you're thinking of something else?

[Merion]

Sorry, I should have specified. Currently I'm looking at encounter map scale symbols.

The example, why this came up, is an encounter map I'm planning that should sport some standing stones or obelisks. But also all kind of historical structures like wells, sheds, walls etc. are of interest. Fly a drone over any historical site in europe and you'll have plenty of interesting stuff you could use in your maps

[Styescape]

For those items, which were created from photos, I mostly used smaller shadows, inner/outer glow or stroke, sometimes bevel/emboss in Photoshop, depending on the item and its colors. Normally I don't use filters for items, but more often for terrain, walls etc. I have to say, that I made only a few items so far (and some of them not with photos), so there might be others with much more experience.
You could have a look at Bogie's (https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=16821) and Tiana's (https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=45053) map assets, to get some ideas how they can look like. I appears to me, that they also mainly use the mentioned tecniques.

[Merion]

Thank you! That helps a lot! Now I have a few keywords/tools I can play with and I'm sure I will end up with some decent results.

[Merion]

I just wanted to share some of results, please tell me what you think:

[Tiana]

In my photo-based assets, all I do is minor editing like changing the color tint. What you've made is perfectly good for that kind of map, except for the green one, which has a line at the bottom you didn't crop out. You should probably clean that up, but otherwise yeah, they're perfectly good battlemap assets. When I make a photo montage style map I usually add some texture overlays once it's done to try pull it all together.

[Yrda]

These assets look nice (besides the problem Tiana already mentioned). I'd try to avoid using objects that are overexposed though. Like the white stone to the right with the completely white top.

[Tiana]

Yes, I agree with Yrda, it makes it obvious that item is from a different lighting, although I think you could work with that one if you added a glowing magic artifact on top.

[Merion]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, the black line I noticed myself by now and removed it. And true, the white one would only work in a very bright, sunlit map.