Lesson 8: Using Effects

InDesign,

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You can use Photoshop-like effects directly in your InDesign documents. You can apply effects such as Inner Shadow, Outer and Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, and Gradient Feather to objects in InDesign. In this lesson, you will discover how to modify the appearance of images, objects, and text using a sampling of the effects.

What you’ll learn in this lesson:

• Applying opacity to objects
• Singling out stroke and fill
• Adjusting effects for objects
• Combining object styles with effects
• Exploring blending modes
• Working with imported files that use transparency

You can use Photoshop-like effects directly in your InDesign documents. You can apply effects such as Inner Shadow, Outer and Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, and Gradient Feather to objects in InDesign. In this lesson, you will discover how to modify the appearance of images, objects, and text using a sampling of the effects.

Starting up

Before starting, make sure that your tools and panels are consistent by resetting your preferences. See “Resetting the InDesign workspace and preferences” in the Starting up section of this book.

You will work with several files from the id08lessons folder in this lesson. Make sure that you have copied the id08lessons folder onto your hard drivefrom the Digital Classroom Books website. You can download the files fromhttp://www.DigitalClassroomBooks.com/epub/indesigncs6. See “Downloading lesson files” in the Starting up section of this book.

This lesson may be easier to follow if the id08lessons folder is on your desktop.

The project

In this lesson, you will jazz-up a two-page spread using the Effects panel in InDesign CS6. You can experiment with blending modes, opacity, and other effects without permanently changing the objects, and then you can save effects as an object style so that you can easily apply the effects to other objects. If you want to take a peek at what the finished project should look like, open the id0801_done.indd file located in the id08lessons folder.

The appearance of the final layout after you have completed the lesson.

Creative effects

InDesign’s Effects panel offers a way to use Photoshop-like effects in InDesign documents. You can apply feathering and drop shadows, as well as control the opacity and blending modes of objects, text, and photos. Not only can you apply effects, but you can also apply them to either the whole object, or to just the fill, stroke, or text in a frame. Better yet, you can turn those effects on or off nondestructively, without permanently changing the objects.

Applying opacity to objects

Opacity settings make an object or text appear transparent; to varying degrees, you can see through the object to the objects that appear behind it. If the opacity is set to 0 percent, the object is completely invisible. By default, all objects are set to 100 percent, or completely opaque. Some people get confused about the difference between tint and opacity. Tint is a screened (lighter) version of a color and is not transparent, but opaque. Opacity is the way you control the transparency of an object. Adjusting the transparency allows objects below to show through the object that is transparent or semi-transparent.

Using these tools, you can apply many effects to images. For example, placing a red frame over a grayscale image and changing the opacity to 50 percent makes the image appear as if it has been colored. This is a task you might think is more suitable for Photoshop, but InDesign can give you that kind of control. Practice on a few objects now.

1. Choose Window > Mini Bridge to open the Mini Bridge panel. Click the Launch Bridge button and navigate to the id08lessons folder. Double-click the id0801.indd file to open the file and begin the lesson. Dock the Mini Bridge panel in the panel dock for quick access later.

2. Save a work version of this file before making any changes. Choose File > Save As. In the Save As dialog box, navigate to the id08lessons folder, type id0801_work.indd in the Name text field, then click Save.

Open the Effects panel by choosing Window > Effects, or by clicking the Effects button () in the panel dock, and take a tour of where you’ll be working.

The Effects panel has blending modes and opacity controls at the top, and the ability to target an effect to the stroke, fill, or text appears in the bottom portion of the panel. It’s time to put these controls to work.

A. Blending mode. B. Opacity and blend settings applied to the object. C. Opacity and blend settings applied to the stroke. D. Opacity and blend settings applied to the fill. E. Opacity and blend settings applied to the text. F. Opacity level. G. Clear all effects and make object opaque. H. Add an object effect to the selected target.

3. Click the Pages button () in the panel dock on the right side of the workspace to open the Pages panel. Notice that the two pages are numbered 6 and 7. You will work on page 7 first. Double-click the page 7 icon in the Pages panel to center the page in the workspace.

4. Choose the Selection tool () from the Tools panel, and select the blue rectangle in the lower-right corner of the page. Hidden underneath this blue frame is an image. You will change the opacity settings of the blue frame to see the image beneath.

5. If the Effects panel is not open, choose Window > Effects, or click the Effects button () in the dock to display the Effects panel.

6. The opacity is set to 100 percent. Click on the right-facing triangle to the immediate right of the Opacity text field to access the Opacity slider.

7. Drag the slider to the left to change the opacity to 65 percent. You can now see the image—a pile of vintage vinyl music albums—underneath the blue, but you still have the effect of the blue coloring. Click the triangle again to collapse the slider.

Set the Opacity slider to 65 percent to see the image beneath the blue frame.

8. Click the blue bar at the very bottom of the page using the Selection tool.

9. Highlight 100 percent in the Opacity field of the Effects panel and type 40. This is yet another way to change the opacity of an object, without using the slider. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to implement the change in opacity. The bar, with an opacity of 40 percent, is slightly more transparent than the frame, which has an opacity value of 65 percent.

Adjust an object’s opacity by entering the number directly in the Opacity text field.

10. Choose File > Save. Keep the file open, as you’ll need it for the rest of the lesson.

Apply effects to stroke or fill only

In InDesign, an effect can be applied to an entire object, or to an object’s stroke, fill, or text individually.

1. Use the Selection tool () to select the white box containing a quote in the upper-left corner of page 7.

2. In the Effects panel, click the right-facing triangle next to Opacity to reveal the slider, then drag the slider left to 50 percent. Click the triangle again to commit the change. Notice that both the text and the fill are now fairly transparent. Applying the effect to the entire object in this way makes the text difficult to read, which is something you don’t want. The text needs to stand out and remain legible.

Apply the opacity change to both the fill and text.

3. Before you can apply the opacity change to the fill only, you must undo the last step. Either highlight 50 percent in the Opacity text field in the Effects panel and type 100 to return to the previous settings, or press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac OS) to undo the previous action.

4. In the Effects panel, click to target the Fill listing. Selecting the Fill property ensures that the opacity applies only to the fill inside the frame and not to the text.

5. Click to reveal the Opacity slider, and drag it to the left to 50 percent. Commit the change by clicking the triangle again after setting the new value. The fill is transparent, but the text keeps an opacity value of 100 percent.

Adjust the opacity of the box’s fill only.

Drop shadow

As with opacity, you can apply the drop shadow effect to a whole object or to just the stroke, fill, or text of the object. A drop shadow creates a three-dimensional shadow effect below whatever you have chosen in the document. You can also change such parameters as the drop shadow’s color, offset, and blending mode, to name a few. This exercise demonstrates the effect and provides you with your first look inside the Effects dialog box.

1. Click the Pages button () in the dock on the right side of the workspace to reveal the Pages panel. Double-click the page 6 icon to center the page on screen. Press Ctrl+0 (Windows) or Command+0 (Mac OS) to fit page 6 on your screen.

2. With the Selection tool (), click the box containing the words, Johnny Guitar rocks again! at the top of the page.

3. In the Effects panel, click the Add an object effect to the selected target button () at the bottom of the panel. From the contextual menu that appears, choose Drop Shadow.

A drop shadow is one of many effects that can be applied in the Effects dialog box.

4. When the Effects dialog box opens, check the Preview checkbox in the bottom-left corner. Look at the change: InDesign applies a drop shadow to the frame because it has a fill of paper. If there were no fill color or stroke color, it would have applied a drop shadow to the text. Because InDesign lets you apply an effect to the fill, stroke, or text individually, you will adjust the settings in the Effects dialog box in the next step so that only the text gets the drop shadow.

5. Still in the Effects dialog box, click the Drop Shadow checkbox in the list on the left side of the dialog box to turn it off. A drop shadow is no longer applied to the whole object.

Turn off the drop shadow for the object.

6. In the Settings for drop-down menu at the top of the dialog box, choose Text to affect only text with the effect.

7. Click the Drop Shadow checkbox to turn it on and apply the drop shadow to the text only. Click OK to close the dialog box and apply the effect.

The Settings for drop-down menu specifies which portion of an object receives the effect.

8. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Adjusting effects for objects

All InDesign’s effects are nondestructive. In other words, when you implement an effect, you always have the option of turning it on or off, as well as re-editing it. You can, for example, change the Drop Shadow effect you applied to the text in the previous exercise. In this exercise, you will change the position of the drop shadow and add the Use Global Light effect, which makes any lighting effects consistent across the entire document. In other words, all drop shadows and other lighting effects appear as if they have the same light source. When the Use Global Light effect is on and you alter the drop shadow’s position, all instances of the effect change. Think of a light shining in a room: if the light source changes position, all the shadows and highlights in the room also change accordingly.

1. Continuing from where you left off in the previous exercise, be sure that the box containing the words Johnny Guitar rocks again! is still selected. Double-click the effects symbol () next to the Text listing inside the Effects panel, to open the Effects dialog box. Once you apply an effect, this symbol appears in the Effects panel next to the component of the document to which the effect was applied. This instance of the effects symbol appears because of the drop shadow you applied to the text earlier. By double-clicking the symbol, you can edit the effects you applied.

Double-click the fx symbol next to the Text listing in the Effects panel to open the Effects dialog box.

2. In the Position section of the Effects dialog box, click the Use Global Light checkbox to turn it on.

3. Type 0p7 (7 points) in the Distance text field. The Distance parameter controls how far from an object the drop shadow appears.

Turn on Use Global Light and set the drop shadow’s Distance parameter in the Effects panel.

If you are not familiar with working in picas and would rather work in inches, simply right-click (Windows) or Control+click (Mac OS) the ruler and change the unit of measurement. The Distance field should then be set to 0.0972 inches.

4. Click OK to apply the changes and close the Effects dialog box. The Drop Shadow changes from its former position to be consistent with other lighting effects in the document.

Global Light coordinates all transparency effects that use shading, such as Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, or Bevel and Emboss. Effects that use Global Light will have the light source angle and altitude synchronized across the entire document. Angle represents the direction that the light source is coming from. The Altitude setting, used for Bevel and Emboss, indicates how close the light source is to the object. Change the direction of the light source on any object’s effect, and all other effects controlled by Global Light will adjust accordingly. Using Global Light gives the appearance of a common light source shining on the objects, adding consistency and realism to the effects.

5. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Bevel and Emboss

The Bevel and Emboss effect, familiar from Photoshop, gives an object a three-dimensional look. In this exercise, you will apply Bevel and Emboss to one of the stars, and then apply this effect to another star more quickly by dragging and dropping the effect from the Effects panel.

1. Using the Selection tool (), select the leftmost star beneath the Johnny Guitar rocks again! article on page 6.

2. Click the Add an object effect to the selected target button () at the bottom of the Effects panel. From the resulting contextual menu, choose Bevel and Emboss.

3. When the Effects dialog box appears, leave the settings at their defaults and click OK to apply a Bevel and Emboss lighting effect to the star. Press Ctrl+(plus sign) (Windows) or Command+(plus sign) (Mac OS) to zoom in on the stars and compare the changed star with the others. Now you’ll apply the same effect to the second star, taking advantage of the ability to drag-and-drop.

Apply the Bevel and Emboss effect to one of the stars.

4. With the first star still selected, take a look at the Effects panel. To the right of the Objects entry is the same effects symbol () that appeared next to the Text entry when you applied the drop shadow. Click and drag the symbol from the Effects panel into the layout and over the second-from-left star. When the cursor, which now looks like a hand with a plus sign over it (), is positioned over the star, release the mouse to apply the Bevel and Emboss effect. Dragging and dropping is an easy way to reapply an effect without having to work within the Effects dialog box. InDesign offers even more ways to apply effects. In the next exercise, you will apply Bevel and Emboss using object styles.

Simply drag and drop the effect to apply Bevel and Emboss to the second star.

5. Choose File > Save.

Object styles with effects

In Lesson 4, “Working with Styles,” and Lesson 5, “Working with Graphics,” you explored using object styles to record stroke, fill, and paragraph styles. With InDesign, you can also use object styles to record and apply effects. As with other style attributes, a change to an effect is reflected wherever you applied the style. In the next exercise, you will record an object style for the Bevel and Emboss effect and apply it to the rest of the stars.

1. On page 6, select the first star using the Selection tool ().

2. Choose Window > Styles > Object Styles, or click the Object Styles button () in the dock, to open the Object Styles panel. From the Object Styles panel menu (), choose New Object Style.

3. In the New Object Style dialog box, type Embossed in the Style Name text field to name the new style. Although the style automatically inherits all effects applied to the selected object, you can choose which of them you want to save with the style.

Notice the section in the bottom-left corner of the dialog box that details all the effects currently applied to the selected object, in this case Transparency and Bevel and Emboss. Before you save the style, you can turn these on and off individually by clicking the check box next to each attribute. For now, leave them as they are.

4. Make sure the Apply Style to Selection check box is selected to automatically apply the new object style to the star. Click OK.

Note the listing of applied effects in the New Object Style dialog box when you create a new object style.

5. Using the Selection tool, Shift-click to select the remaining stars on the right side of page 6. Click the Embossed object style in the Object Styles panel to apply it to all the stars.

Using Find/Change to apply object styles

There are 13 more stars remaining on pages 6 and 7 that need the Embossed object style applied to them. Although the object style will make quick work of this, imagine if you had even more stars that needed the object style applied to them. Fortunately, InDesign provides an efficient method for you to do this.

1. Press Shift+Ctrl+A (Windows) or Shift+Command+A (Mac OS) to make sure that nothing is selected in the document.

2. Choose Edit > Find/Change to open the Find/Change dialog box. Click the Object button at the top of the dialog box.

3. In the Find Object Format section, click the Specify attributes to find button (). Click on the Fill category under the Basic Attributes section, and then click on the red swatch (C=15, M=100, Y=100, K=0) under the Fill category to tell InDesign to find objects with a red fill color. Click on the Stroke category under the Basic Attributes section, and then click on the Black swatch under the Stroke category. Click OK.

4. In the Change Object Format section, click on the Specify attributes to change button. Click on the Style Options category under the Basic Attributes section and choose Embossed from the Object Style drop-down menu. Click OK.

You’ve just told InDesign to search for any object with a red fill and black stroke and then apply the Embossed object style to the objects that it finds.

The Find/Change attributes are defined for the objects you want to find and change.

5. Click the Change All button. A dialog box appears, indicating that 18 objects have been changed. This is because it found the five original stars that had the object style already applied. InDesign simply applies the object style again, which is not a problem since an object style can only be applied to an object once. Click OK, and then click Done.

The object style applied to every star on the page.

Basic Feather

Feathering fades the transparency of an object’s border from opaque to invisible over a distance along the edges. Instead of using Photoshop to feather an image’s border, you can use InDesign. You can produce some pleasing effects by softening the edge of an image to make it appear as if the image fades into the page. Another feature is Directional Feathering, which allows you to control which side of an image or a colored frame receives the feather. The Basic Feather effect’s settings include Corners, which determines how the corners of the feather appear; Noise, which sets how smooth or textured the feather transition appears; and Choke, which controls how much of the feather is opaque or transparent.

In this exercise, you will apply a Basic Feather effect to the image on page 6, and then use the Gradient Feather tool to apply a one-sided feather to the image on page 7.

1. Change the unit of measurement to inches by right-clicking (Windows) or Control+clicking (Mac OS) in the upper-left corner where the ruler guides meet. This will change both the horizontal and vertical measurement units at the same time.

2. In the Pages panel, double-click page 6 to activate it.

3. Use the Selection tool () to select the image of Tommy Acustomas in the lower-left area of the page.

4. If necessary, choose Window > Effects to open the Effects panel, then click the Add an object effect to the selected target button (). From the resulting contextual menu, choose Basic Feather.

Choose Basic Feather to open the Effects dialog box and apply the Basic Feather effect to the photo.

5. Click the Preview checkbox to see what the feather looks like. All edges of the image are diffused and quickly blend into the background.

6. In the Effect dialog box’s Options section, click in the Feather Width text field, which currently reads 0.125 in.

7. To change the Feather Width, which is the distance the feather will be applied, press the Up Arrow key on the keyboard twice to increase the amount in the Feather Width text field to 0.25 inch.

Adjust the Basic Feather settings to tweak the effect.

8. Click OK to close the Effects dialog box and apply the Basic Feather effect. Next, you will apply the same feather settings to the quote box on page 7.

This is how the image looks after Basic Feather is applied. Notice how the edges of the image appear to fade out.

9. Double-click the Hand tool () in the Tools panel to fit the InDesign spread in the workspace.

10. Make sure you still have the lower-left image on page 6 selected; if not, do so using the Selection tool.

You will now apply the same effect to the quote box on page 7, using a different method.

11. From the Effects panel, drag the effects symbol () that appears just to the right of Object and drop it over the quote box at the top of page 7. Now the quote box is also feathered; it is very easy to add and share effects this way.

12. Choose File > Save to save your work.

When dragging the fx symbol onto another object, watch for the cursor icon to change (), indicating that the effect will be applied. You may need to aim for the edge of a frame (rather than the center) to get the effect to transfer.

The Gradient Feather tool

The Gradient Feather tool eases the transition of an object’s opacity, from fully opaque to fully transparent. In this section, you will use the tool to fade the bottom of the Garage Band image on page 7 to transparency. In the previous exercise, Basic Feather applied the feather to all sides equally. InDesign also has a Directional Feather effect to adjust each feathered edge separately. You can use the Gradient Feather tool to dynamically fade one side of an image to transparency without affecting the other sides. You also have control over the angle at which the gradient effect is applied. By using this tool, you can click and drag as many times as you like, adjusting the gradient feather to whichever angle you want, without a dialog box.

1. Use the Selection tool () to select the Garage Band image at the top of page 7.

2. Select the Gradient Feather tool () from the Tools panel.

3. Click just below the baseline of the phrase Summer of ’88, drag down so the cursor touches the bottom of the image, and then release the mouse. The bottom of the image fades to transparency. The longer you click and drag, the larger the area to which the fade is applied, and the more dramatic the effect. Try holding Shift as you drag to keep the gradient effect horizontally straight.

(Left) Drag down from the lower-middle area of transparency. (Right) The Gradient Feather effect fades the image to transparency along the direction you choose.

4. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Converting text to a path

Here you’ll learn how to modify the text so that instead of filling it with a standard color, you fill it with a photo, producing a cool effect that’s fairly simple to implement. You cannot place an image directly into text while it is still editable; you can only place an image into text after it is converted to outlines.

You can use the Type menu’s Create Outlines command to convert the original font outline information into a set of compound paths. Compound paths are separate paths combined into a single object. In this exercise, you will convert the letters GB on page 7 to compound paths and place a photo inside them.

1. Using the Selection tool (), click the box on page 7 that contains GB.

Make sure you did not accidentally select the type with the Type tool; although you can still convert text to outlines this way, it will create an in-line graphic. Although this technique can be useful in some cases, it could make it hard to modify and position the outlined text.

2. Choose Type > Create Outlines to convert the font information to paths.

Choose Type > Create Outlines to convert text to paths.

3. Choose the Direct Selection tool () in the Tools panel to view the paths you created. Because these are compound paths, you can now place a picture inside them.

View the new paths around the type.

4. Open the Mini Bridge panel and navigate to the Links folder inside the id08lessons folder, select id0807.psd, right-click (Windows) or Control+click (Mac OS), and choose Place > In InDesign. The photo fills the GB compound paths.

Choose Place > In InDesign to position an image inside the paths.

5. With the Direct Selection tool still selected, click and drag the image to reposition it. You should see the image ghosted where it does not fall inside the path area. The photo you imported is the same as the image over which it appears, only cropped. Drag to fit the photo in the box however you like.

When repositioning an image inside a path, do not click and drag until you see the hand cursor. If you click and drag when it appears as the Direct Selection tool (), you could accidentally select and move a point on the path.

Click and drag an image to see the ghosted portions of the image outside the path area.

6. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Applying blending modes to objects

If you have ever placed a black logo with a white background on a colored page, and then wondered how to get rid of the white background, you’ll appreciate blending modes. While there are several ways you can resolve this using InDesign, in this exercise you will discover how to use blending modes to manipulate a logo.

Blending modes affect how color pixels on one level blend with color pixels on the levels and layers below it. The two most commonly used blending modes are Multiply and Screen. You can remember what they do in the following way: Multiply blends out the white; Screen blends out the black. In more detailed terms, Multiply looks at the color information for the items and multiplies the base color by the blend color. The outcome is always a darker color. Screen examines each item’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The outcome is always a lighter color.

In the next two exercises, you will practice applying Screen and Multiply to examine how blending modes work.

The Screen blending mode

The Screen blending mode is useful for colorizing the black within an image. You will apply a Screen blending mode to the blue box that’s part of the record albums image on page 7 to give the records below the box a blue tint.

1. With the Selection tool (), click the blue box in the lower-right corner of page 7. This box is the one you altered in the first opacity exercise. Because InDesign effects are editable, you will remove the opacity.

2. Choose Window > Effects or open the Effects panel from the dock, reveal the Opacity slider (click on the right-facing triangle next to the settings), and drag it to 100 percent. Click the triangle again to commit the value. The blue box covering the records image becomes solid blue.

Return the box’s opacity to 100 percent in the Effects panel.

3. To the left of the Opacity setting in the Effects panel is the Blending Mode drop-down menu. It is currently set to Normal. Click Normal to reveal the other options, and choose Screen. The color of the blue box is now blending with the image of the records.

Once you change the blending mode to Screen, the records look blue where they were formerly black.

Remember that the Screen effect drops the black out of an image, so if you put a Screen blending mode on the blue box, the black parts of the image beneath the box appear blue.

The Multiply blending mode

You will now work with an image that has so far been hidden on a layer. You will use the Multiply blending mode to visually remove the logo’s white area, while leaving the black areas unchanged.

1. From the Pages panel, double-click page 6 to center it on the page.

2. Click the Layers button () in the dock. There is a hidden layer called Johnny that you will need for this exercise and the next one.

3. Click in the leftmost box to the left of the Johnny layer to make that layer visible. An image of Johnny Guitar appears on page 6. On his T-shirt, in the upper-right corner of the image, is a swirly J and G—his signature and logo.

When the visibility icon is turned on next to a layer, the layer is visible.

4. Select the signature using the Selection tool ().

5. Open the Effects panel, if necessary, and from the Blending Mode drop-down menu at the top of the panel, choose Multiply. The white box around the logo disappears and the logo appears directly on Johnny’s T-shirt.

Applying the Multiply effect blends Johnny Guitar’s logo with his shirt.

Because Multiply blends away the white, applying it is a handy trick to get rid of only the white in black-and-white images. This blending mode does not work with full-color images that have white around them, because it tries to blend white throughout the image, making it appear transparent or blended into the colors beneath.

As you’ll learn in the next section, there are alternative ways to achieve this same effect, such as using a clipping path or alpha channel selection.

6. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Working with imported files that use transparency

If you have worked through the previous lessons in this book, you probably have noticed that incorporating images created or modified in Photoshop into InDesign is a well-established part of a production workflow. In this exercise, you look at the ways that InDesign supports transparency in images edited in Photoshop.

Photoshop has a number of ways to define areas of transparency in an image. While Photoshop is not required for this lesson, there are concepts such as alpha channels, clipping paths, and selections that are worth investigating in Photoshop and that can help you get the most out of this lesson.

The choice of using alpha channels or clipping paths depends on which tools you are more comfortable using and the content of your image. As a rule, paths are cleaner because they are created using vectors, which give you nice, smooth curves, while an alpha channel selection is based on pixels and gives you an edge that is choppier yet more realistic in some cases. For example, if you were removing the background of a product such as a television or soda can, vector paths would be the better choice. However if you are removing the background from a person, especially around their hair, an alpha channel might be the better choice. Know that regardless of which method you choose in the clipping options in InDesign, a vector edge will be created.

In this next exercise, you will place two images with different types of transparency. The first image simply has a transparent background, and the second has an alpha channel and a clipping path that were created in Photoshop. After learning how to control these transparent areas in InDesign, you will examine how transparency interacts with text wrap.

1. Press Shift+Ctrl+A (Windows) or Shift+Command+A (Mac OS) to deselect all objects in the document. In the Layers panel, select Layer 1.

2. Open the Pages panel from the dock and double-click page 7 to select it. You will be placing a photo on this page. Double-click the Zoom tool (), if necessary, to view the page at 100 percent.

3. Use the Mini Bridge to navigate to the Links folder within the id08lessons folder, select the id0802.psd file, then right-click (Windows) or Control+click (Mac OS), and choose Place > In InDesign.

4. The cursor now contains a thumbnail image of the file being placed. In the second column of page 7’s Allison Copper story, click in the white space to place the image. Using the Selection tool, click and drag to move the picture into position.

Use the Selection tool to position the image on page 7.

Move the image over some text; notice that it does not have a white background. Instead, the file has a transparent layer. InDesign automatically recognized the .psd file’s transparency. Adjust the image position to match the example above.

Applying an alpha channel selection

The photo of the band members (id0802.psd) contains an alpha channel selection that was saved in Photoshop. An alpha channel is a way to save a selection you created in Photoshop so that you can later access it in InDesign for visibility and text wrap options. Alpha channels are stored, along with the color channels of an RGB or CMYK image, to capture a selection or indicate transparency. In this exercise, you will access an alpha channel using the Clipping Paths option. A clipping path is another term for the visibility edge that exists with this type of partially transparent image. Consider the outline of the two band members. This outline represents the clipping path; all areas inside the path are opaque, while all areas outside the path are transparent.

You could use InDesign’s Detect Edges feature, which would build a path for you around the two band members based on the transparency or background contrast, but an even more accurate way is to access the saved alpha channel selection that is already made for you.

1. Make sure you still have the band photo selected. If it is not, select the image using the Selection tool (), and then choose Object > Clipping Path > Options.

Choose Clipping Path > Options in the Object menu.

2. In the Clipping Path dialog box, choose Alpha Channel from the Type drop-down menu and rockers from the Alpha drop-down menu. Notice that the Alpha setting default is Transparency, based on the transparent pixels of the file. Click to turn on the Preview checkbox to see the path you created from the alpha channel. This path is also helpful when applying the text wrap.

Choose Alpha Channel and rockers in the Clipping Path dialog box.

3. Click OK to accept the path shown in the preview and close the dialog box. Next you will apply a text wrap around the alpha channel selection.

4. Choose Window > Text Wrap to access the Text Wrap panel.

5. In the panel, click on the Wrap around object shape button () to wrap the text around the image’s shape rather than its bounding box. In the Text Wrap panel, enter an offset value of 10 pt (.1389 in.) or experiment with different values, and then close the Text Wrap panel.

Notice that in the Contour Options section of the Text Wrap panel, the default Type setting is Same as Clipping. Although this is useful, it is possible to choose another contour method for the text wrap that is totally separate from what is used for the clipping. This opens up a world of possibilities to you as the designer.

Wrap the text around the object shape.

6. Choose the Selection tool (), and then click and drag the image slightly to the left to allow the text to wrap slightly around the guitarist’s leg.

7. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Applying a path selection

A path selection is a selection made and saved in Photoshop using the Pen tool. You can access these selections in InDesign the same way you select a .psd file’s alpha channel. Pen tool selections are cleaner than alpha channels in InDesign because they are vector paths and InDesign doesn’t need to create this path on its own. Alpha channel selections are based on pixels, and InDesign makes the path for you. You will now apply a pre-made path to Johnny Guitar and apply a text wrap again.

1. Open the Pages panel from the dock, and double-click page 6 to bring it into view.

2. Select the image of Johnny Guitar using the Selection tool.

3. Choose Object > Clipping Path > Options.

4. In the Clipping Path dialog box, check the Preview checkbox, and then choose Photoshop Path from the Type drop-down menu. Guitarist should automatically appear as the Path name.

5. Click OK. Notice how the black around the image disappears based on the saved Photoshop path. Now you can apply the text wrap.

With the path applied, you’re ready to wrap text around Johnny.

6. With the image of Johnny still selected, choose Window > Text Wrap to open the Text Wrap panel, and then click the panel’s Wrap around object shape button (). Again, the text wraps around the object’s shape and not its box, just as it did in the previous exercise with alpha channels. Set the offset value to 10 pt (.1389 in.) or adjust it to a value you find acceptable.

Here is the final design with all the effects applied.

7. Choose File > Save to save your work. Take a look at the rock ’n’ roll journal spread. You’re finished working with imported files and transparency. Close this completed file by choosing File > Close.

Congratulations! You’ve finished the lesson.

Self study

Here are some projects you can create on your own:

• • Apply a drop shadow to Johnny Guitar and choose Use Global Light to coordinate the effects throughout the document. Then adjust the direction of the Drop Shadow effect and watch the headline drop shadow update as well.
• • Select the top photo on page 7, and remove the Gradient Feather effect. Try to accomplish the same effect with Directional Feathering.
• • Apply more effects to Johnny Guitar, save the result as an object style, and then apply that style to the images of Johnny and Allison Copper. Change the object style so that both images update simultaneously.
• • Experiment with blending modes by making a colored frame over Tommy Acustomas; then change the Blending modes and Opacity settings to get different effects.

Review

Questions

1. Can you alter an effect after you’ve applied it?

2. What is the difference between opacity and tint?

3. If you apply Create Outlines to type, can you still edit the text with the Type tool?

4. Can you feather only one edge of a photograph?

Answers

1. Yes, you can always return to the Effects panel, select the effect again, and double-click the effect to make adjustments.

2. Tint is a screened (lighter) version of a color, and is not transparent. Opacity achieves a similar result; however, it allows objects behind the transparent object to show through.

3. No, if Create Outlines is applied, the text is made into paths and is no longer related to the font information.

4. Yes, with the Directional Feather effect or the Gradient Feather tool, you can control the angle and direction of a feather to include only one of the image’s edges.