Topographic Map Pattern Tutorial - Photoshop

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I wanted to recreate the Surface Pressure Visualisation I layered over some of my previous experiments. Having a tool to do this without screen recording and layering with irrelevant details would be helpful. While I struggled to find any tutorials, I did find similar patterns in topographic map patterns. Although these aren't animated, it is a good technique to use as a base for animation and imagery.

Topographic Map Patterns are another great visualisation of something that can help us understand unseen information and help provide a bigger picture regarding elevation and terrain.

Here, I recreate these patterns in Photoshop – these would be great to incorporate into a screen-printing design or painting.

Tutorial:

How To Create Topographic Map Patterns in Photoshop

Convert to smart layer

Filter - Render - Clouds

Filter - Render - Difference Clouds

Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur - 2.0 Pixels

Image - Adjustments - Posterize - 20 levels

Filter - Stylize - Find Edges

Smart Layer means you can adjust the levels and styles in the right panel

(At this point could be taken into illustrator for 'live tracing' and to edit the strokes with thicker weights and dashed line effects)

Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast - 'Use Legacy' - Max contrast and slowly increase brightness until lines start to disappear in preview ( giving dashed/dotted line effect)

Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur (small amount to soften pixels)

Add Gradient Map Adjustment Layer to colour