Blender Journey posts a look at the basics for using Diffuse, bump, and specular maps with Blender’s Cycles Rendering Engine and shows the relationships between the different map types aimed at teaching beginner Blender users to help them get oriented in starting with Blender Rendering.
This tutorial explains the difference between diffuse, bump, and specular maps and shows how to use them to create realistic materials in cycles. In addition
David provides a great introduction to using maps with rendering that can be transported to any 3D software package really, and he also goes on to show how you are able to use maps as a mask so you can give the appearance of combined materials on the same object.
Thanks Lester, that was extremely helpful for a newby like me. I appreciate the time you took to do it.