Topics covered include
Required software
I will be using Paint Shop Pro v7 for this tutorial, but you could use any application whih supports "Layers" and converting between 8bit to 24 bit.
Preparations
Copy the file page001.pcx from your thief folder into the miss20 folder.
Next, load the copied file into PaintShop Pro (or a similar drawing program).
Select Colours>Increase Colour Depth>16 Million Colours (24bit), so that we can use layers with this image.
Next select Layers>New Raster Layer.
This pops up a dialogue box. Next to name, type Ink, and then click Ok.
To save the image, select File>Save As...., and choose Paint Shop Pro Image from the drop down box.
Next to File name, type page001.psp and click Ok.
Drawing with Layers
Select View>Toolbars and make sure that the Layer Palette is ticked. You should now be able to find the Layer Palette window eitehr next to or behind your map.
Make sure that Ink is highlighted and at 75%.
What you have now are two drawing surfaces, which are independent of each other. You can draw on one without affecting the other.
This lets you draw whatever you like, adding and erasing rectangles and lines and so on, without affecting the background image (the picture of piece of pager).
I recommend that, at first, you stick to drawing in black.
Because the Ink layer is at 75%, the paper will be slightly visible through the ink, giving a good natural effect.
Once you have finished drawing, save the image under a different filename (make sure the fileformat is Paint Shop Pro Image and you use the .psp file extension.
Converting back to pcx
Sadly Thief cannot read full colour images, so we must convert our map back to pcx format.
Select Layers>Merge>Merge All (Flatten). This will compress our image into a single layer.
Do not save the image.
Load the original Page001.pcx, then copy the single layer PSP image (CTRL-C) and paste it into Page001.pcx (CTRL-E).
Save Page001.pcx, and then close your single layer PSP image without saving.
You are done!