Comparison set of the map presented in this paper and G18. Panel a: uncorrected CMD for b320, the solid line represents the selection window used to define the RC+RGB sample, as explained in the text. Panel b: reddening corrected CMD for b320, using the map in panel e (this work’s). Panel c: reddening corrected CMD for b320, using the map in panel f (G18). Both this panel and panel b use the same reddening law (see Sect. 3.1) and scale in color, so it can be appreciated the way the RC in this panel is off and slanted redward. Panel d: one-on-one comparison between the color excess values derived from this work (E(J − K_s)^ee in plot) with those from G18 (E(J − K_s)^G18 in plot) for the whole VVV bulge area. A color-coded density map (high density in deep red, low in magenta) with a square root filter has been used to cleanly appreciate the correspondence between G18 and this work’s color excess for low-reddening areas, while still portraying the upward trend where we find systematically higher E(J − K_s) in high extinction areas. The peculiar features near maximum and minimum E(J − K_s)^G18 comes from some pixels near the Galactic center, a few high-extinction concentrations scattered around the bulge area, but mostly from a few glitches in G18 map near the Galactic plane. These are exemplified in panel g, where a small portion of the plane appears randomly jagged with constant excess areas from the original Gonzalez et al. (2012). Panel h shows the same area as panel g, but with this work’s realization.