Hey guys just need a little help with something... I really want to improve the presentation of my map threads on this forum. I want to put a little legend showing where all weapons and spawns, and equipment is, also to do a birds eye view with weapon placements etc so it's easier for people to get an idea of how the map plays before they even download it. What programs can I use for this? I'm no good with photoshop, never used it before and cbf buying it so are there any other options/ free picture editing programs?
If you can acquire it, Photoshop is definitely the way to go. It's an extremely useful program to have in general, and there are lots of student discounts out there to make the price more reasonable. The learning curve for the more basic stuff isn't too steep, and if you can't teach yourself, both Adobe's built-in help and numerous YouTube tutorials should have you covered. If Photoshop isn't an option, Powerpoint can be pretty versatile as well. The main disadvantage comes from difficulties with shapes and other drawn elements, but the tools for labeling and making diagrams are all there. As long as you save your slide as a .jpg, you can use it just like any other image in your posts. Another option might be Microsoft Paint, but as a Mac user, I can't offer a whole lot of insight there. Hope this helps.
Send me an overhead screenshot and location of weapons and I can make you a pretty overview and a map header.
try GIMP as someone else suggested. It will be a bit weird to learn for anyone who has used photoshop before, but once you do learn it, it's easy. what you want to make specific use of is the layering ability. make and stack layers of items like background (your origional screenshot) and then add a border if desired (its own layer) and any graphic lettering you desire. Text can be stretched, skewed etc. to give your graphic lettering a unique look. fenix hulk made a thread a while ago with graphics for all items in H4, so you can probably save those and drop them in as their own layers. Good luck!