Hi there,
I was always a bit annoyed by the quality of my arrows that I drew onto my campaign maps to visualize, e.g. movement of troops or expansion directions. I use GIMP to create my images and I tried several things to improve my arrows, such as using the soft drawing feature where you add weights to your pointer to make your lines more smooth etc. But it's still not perfect.
Example: Soft drawing + weights
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Now I finally found a nice script that does exactly what I need in a much better way. It will help you to create nice and smooth arrows for your maps, and your arrows will be consistent, with a similar style and with the same wings etc. The script is provided by a guy called Programmer_ceds.
Example: Using the .scm Script
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
You can download the script here: http://registry.gimp.org/node/28566
You need GIMP, of course. I think most of these .scm scripts also work for Photoshop but I'm not sure.
How to install? Check this general guide for installing scripts: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GIMP/Installing_Plugins
How to use it?
In GIMP, you need to use your "Path" tool to define a two-node path. Basically start and end of your arrows. Then you can adapt the curvature of the arrow by dragging the (path-)line, or by manipulating the two pointers at the end. That way you can adapt the shape and curve of your arrow. Then go to tools -> Arrows.
It's actually quite simple.
I know that not every AAR makes use of maps/campaign map images but I think it's a neat feature in most AARs and hopefully this little script will help some of you. Again, just to be clear: The script is not provided by myself, I merely found it and thought it might be a good idea to share.
Cheers, Z