Trying to make the private land white overlay hillshade but

Question

I'd like to have anyone's feedback on this draft map I created. Tried to make the private ownership white but since it's RGB is not near to 255.

I've seen someone created this map similiar to it and leaves it as light grey color.

Thanks.

http://www.cartotalk.com/index.php?showtopic=7125

I am using ArcMap 9.3.1. I have Photoshop 7 on my computer but no training background on it. Have use couple of times in the past not related to GIS.

Answer 1

Though you don't say so, perhaps you are using rgb compostie so you can assign your own colors to specific values?
This is a raster image? (another assumption) I understand the output is. Are you creating the output from raster or vector?
Have you tried using a stretched color ramp as in attached image?

The red arrow points to one commonly called USGS elevation

Answer 2

Check to see if there is any transparency active on the layer:

If this is set to 0% the layer should be opaque and not show the DTM. However, if you want to show the terrain and a white layer it is not possible to make it consistently white.

Answer 3

Looks like your land ownership is somewhat transparent and draped over the hillshade. Unfortunately ESRI does not support "gradual transparency". (i just made that term up) Even if you set the "White" color to of the White-Black color ramp to "No color" it will default to white and only those areas that evaluate to white in the hillshade raster will be solid white. THe rest of the colors in the ramp will be various shades of gray. Not varying levels of transparent black which is what it should be. (A true "No Color -> Black" color ramp of the hillshade overlaid over top or the other land features would make the colors appear true and rich yet it would still correctly show the 3D effect)

Here is a few ideas:

You could try applying transparency to the hillshade and place it over top of the features instead although this will likely not be satisfactory as well.

You could separate the hillshade into several parts by the ownership type. You could clip just the "white land ownership" areas out of the hillshade raster and adjust standard deviation of the white hillshade so as to reduce the amout of gray. The shadows will appear more harsh but it might look ok.

You could export the map to Photoshop or any other image editor and select the "White ownership area" and make them brighter or adjust the curves, shadows, etc.