Campaign Maps

[othaero]

Im about to run a premade adventure and want to use the encounter maps they have made, but as I sure as yall know they have markings for things the players are not supposed to know about.
What resources do you use to make the maps usuable?

[Falcon X]

I'm sure you can do this with several programs, but I do it on my old Photoshop CS3. The important thing is having layers.

1. Pull up the picture of the map in photoshop.
2. Create a new layer and black out everything in area 1
3. Create layers for all the other areas, one at a time, labeling each area appropriately as I black it out. Include a blackout layer for the background.

While the players are playing, they enter area 1. I then click "hide layer" on layer 1 and that blackness goes away so they can see it. As they discover each new area, I hide the appropriate layer so they can see it.

Does that make sense? It works really well, even when screen-share playing over skype, though I also hooked it up to a projector for a full-wall map.