Smooth color edges

Question

Part of a game design - I had to make a map that is built with layers of color that the engine processes at a later stage.

Each color represents a different ground type. Basically, I made that map on 2048 res and I had to resize it all way up to 16k res. So all the colored shapes are pixeled on their edges.

My question is - is there a tool that will make those pixeled edges smoother without changing the colors in any way and without blending one color to another (for now - each color is separated in a different layer - so I could use that if it's needed).

I could just go over the whole thing and fine those edges properly - but it's a 16k picture and some areas are supposed to be as accurate as possible.

Example:

The basic idea is that I need those big pixelated areas flattened and refined - the pink path is something I've added after the resize so it's a good example of how I wanted the pixelated edges to look like.

Big thanks in advanced.

Answer 1

Several things come to mind, I have no idea how many different shaped areas you have but drawing them at the target size would have been better. That's hind sight. To deal with the current problem you may consider the following, it will likely require further tweaking:

• Start with one layer, Ctrl-Click on the layer icon to load it as a selection (I am using Quick Select to simulate)

• Right-Click inside the selection and choose Refine Selection
• Use the "Smooth" slider to smooth the edges, after clicking OK you can repeat this if you want even smoother transitions; carefully!

• Now, you will fill the inside and delete the outside of the selection. Pick up the bucket fill tool and Alt-Click inside the color to select the current color.
• Add a new blank layer above the current one and hide the colored layer, target the blank layer, click on the inside of the selection.

• Repeat for other layers
• Tweak the border areas to eliminate the gaps

Another alternative may be to draw a selection using the polygon lasso tool rather than loading the layer as the selection. This will give you a better path to follow around the bordering colors. After finishing one color, repeat for the others. There may be a few simplifying steps I can add if all these may make sense to you. After the first section of green fix, the overlap may look like below: