The open source Enblend/Enfuse, which ships as part of the open source panorama stitching software Hugin, does it automatically and seamlessly.
https://twitter.com/geo_spatialist There is a video detailing the process
If Google Earth Were Designed For Your Wall: https://ramblemaps.com/if-google-earth-were-designed-for-wal...
https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/
The datasets you pick from can be a bit confusing unless you click the (!) icon next to the names to figure out what they are.
I have mostly used it for looking at old reconnaissance satellite images from the 70's and 80's. I posted some directions here and a image from a satellite.
Getting emails is more important to our business than knowing where folks want to see. We also don’t want folks to have the expectation that we’ll make a map because they requested it. Each map takes a lot of work and in our experience requesters rarely become purchasers.
(Also, we see the page you submitted your email on, which is often a search query that was not successful, which tells us what you were looking for!)
I also recall being at a RAF base in the late 90’s and being amazed by a tool they had in their map and chart division - little blow-moulder that would make a sheet of relief terrain from a DEM - as I guess that was easier at the time than getting pilots to look at digital models.
These look great. I love the insights on the tuning process and it's nice to know it isn't just a lazy cropping.
Unfortunately the explanation for that step is only a few sentences..
For this particular map it involves separate curve adjustment layers for the water and land. We generally increase the steepness of the curve (increasing contrast) and then adjust individual color channels to get the color balance right. We also do some localized burning (darkening) in areas where pushing the curve resulted in some pixels getting too bright.
I’d love to put together a post with lots of pictures and details about how we do this. It is motivating knowing there is an audience for it.
I will be very excited to see a post on how these aesthetic improvements are made!
The final image just looked so much better than the second last one for me.
The images are already blended so much of the work is done.