Lake Charts

[PineStump]

I have a few Lake Erie lake charts.Is there a way to load these to my Oregon 450?I know absolutely nothing about map making.So it would have to be fairly easy for me to figure it out.

[Indrid Cold]

well if yo can scan the charts you could do this:
http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/onthetrail/custommaps

[PineStump]

I got a couple of lake charts in PDF form which I converted to JPEG And then followed the directions for Garmin Custom Maps.Everything seemed to work out great.After saving to my Oregon 450 I get a message that says my map is to big and will not work on my GPS.I don`t see any way to make it any smaller.How do I go about doing that?

[PineStump]

I just changed the size of the JPEG chart that I was going to use .Now everything just got worse.Can`t seem to get anything lined up.At first I didn`t think that this was going to be such a pain in the neck.

[Boyd]

There are a number of programs designed to help make this kind of map; they will offer you more control than the simple Google Maps method that Garmin describes. I have not used any of these myself however.

http://www.the-thorns.org.uk/mapping/
http://mobac.sourceforge.net/
http://moagu.com/?page_id=155
http://topofusion.com/garmin-custom-maps.php

[PineStump]

I don`t know why Garmin has to make everything so darn complicated .Whether its Custom Maps or Custom Symbols .I Thank You for the list of Programs and will check these out.I also tried one free program that worked out great.Its called G-Raster.In about 3 steps it was all done.All  Ihad to do was open it in Google Earth and save it to My GPS.Took less than 10 minutes.It puts Garmins Custom Map Instructions to shame.