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bda8c5.jpg
Sparkling Swirl
bda8c5
Photoshop is huge, slow, and kind of an overkill for something akin to what you posted. Don't know about you, but I bothers me to no end to see a screen cluttered with a crapton of menus, buttons and options I know I'm never gonna need.
Paint.net is, in a nutshell, freeware Photoshop that mimics its versatility.
When you adjust/update tactical maps, you don't really need to draw objects all the time. Layers are immensely helpful, however. To give an example, when I make a location map, I use the following layers, from bottom to top: grid, buffer (for something that has to be temporarily taken away), spell effects, illumination/vision range, terrain1, terrain2 (details & additions to terrain1), objects (interactive stuff), agents (players & your mooks).
I do it in GraphicsGale, essentially MSPaint + layers + animation support (free version doesn't save to .gif and doesn't give you the full functionality of animating .gifs, but I doubt it's something you're asking for). It's simple and has a fully customizable key map.
Similarly, I'm biased here since I only do tactical maps and occasional crap pixel art and never used Photoshop extensively.
Yeah, way to undermine your own suggestion, AC.
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