Computer Map Research

Treasure hunting without maps would be like riding a bicycle without a seat; painful to say the least!

The older maps are a little harder to come by in a form that is readily usable. Most of us have gone to libraries and photocopied parts of maps for areas we are interested in hunting. This works great and is a very inexpensive way to go but what happens if your copy is misplaced, rendered unusable from wear, or some other unforeseen reason? (Loaned out to a friend who forgets it wasn’t theirs in the first place) It’s back to the library for a second copy.

Been there, done that, as they say nowadays! What I plan on sharing with you here is the process that I have found, using a computer, to eliminate these problems and greatly enhance the maps from their static state in printed form!

There are a couple of ways to get the maps home to your computer. I have use both with great success!

The first is to use a standard camera to take photos of the maps wherever they are found, Library, Historical Society, Court House, etc... Then, when the photos are developed, I scan them into the computer at the highest resolution that my printer can print. (My laser has a maximum resolution of 600 dpi so I set the scanner to scan 600 dpi)

The second method is to use a digital camera if you have one. This works fairly well with a 1 megapixel camera but with my new 3 megapixel camera is even superior to scanning the photos!

There are many different graphics programs to use to manipulate your maps but by far the best has to be Adobe PhotoShop. It works easily with the large files which your maps will be.

There are many things you can do with the maps in PhotoShop. Remove “smudge” marks, add your own text comments, remove unwanted parts of the map, etc. . .

Zooming in on your map is where the real advantages start showing themselves. Many times there have been small text or features on maps that I have scanned that I would have missed if I didn’t have the ability to zoom in and take a closer look.

Now for a little trick. There are several “screen capture” programs floating out there on the Internet or for sale that will let you capture all or part of your screen. The one I use is “Grab It Pro”. Once I am zoomed in on a section of the map that I want printed just as is, I open my Grab It program and “grab” that section of the screen. This has a couple of great advantages. It is much easier than trying to do this within PhotoShop. If you tried to cut and past a section of your map in PhotoShop it would still keep the initial resolution unless you change it so your new image would just be a very small little printout. Not what you wanted at all. Second, it eliminates the possibility of changing your original scan. You are only viewing the original and using the capture program to take a snap-shot of the screen. You get a new file, at just the resolution that you want!

I use this method to “browse” over my maps when I am deciding where I want to attempt to hunt. When I find a promising area I zoom into that area and capture it to a new file and print out two copies, one for me and one for the land owner and off I go to ask permission. It sure seams like a lot of work when you get there and get turned down but at least you gave it a shot. :(

Another trick that I showed at a meeting one time is to print one version of a map (like the oldest) onto a transparency and then print a newer version of the same area and at the same scale onto plain paper. You can then easily compare the two and find some very interesting differences. Roads that have been moved or removed, houses that “aren’t where they should have been” etc . . . This has helped me find sites that have been overlooked by other hunters. Don’t settle for just one copy of a map of an area. See how many different ones you can find.

Hope some of you can use these ideas and for those that don’t have computers, sorry for the boring read.