I research this thing for the Newsletter and I get my name invoked. Geez, people expect me to lurk in threads or something.
So on the trees. Here's the basis that DiM gave me for how to change the brush. You end up with what I term an "inconsistent brush", giving you half-tones of the original color all over the place.
DiM wrote:shape dynamics>
> size jitter 100%
> minimum diameter 0%
> angle jitter 0%
> roundness jitter 68%
> min roundness 25%
scatter> adjust as you please dependng on what you need
colour dynamics>
>fore/back 100%
> saturation 50%
the rest at 0%
and check smoothing.
I made my brush color straight black and used a decent size of this brush preset above. Then I painted around in what I considered a tree to look like, varying the shapes as much as I felt like (I was able to come up with 21 or so different trees on The Citadel, so it's do-able). Then I adjusted the tree layer's hue to be some shade of green. To complete the effect, I would switch to a smaller and more consistent brush, keep the black, and add in random specks of black to make it look more like a tree with some shadow on it. Note that all the trees I made were made at a scale 4-5 times larger than the version that actually appeared on the map. That way I could reduce their size to Small and Large and experience no quality loss at all.
Best of luck on it, and look for my write-up on your map tomorrow in the 8th Issue.