Nick Cassway's designBLOG

Imposing a document with InDesign

ncassway — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:20:02 +0000

There is no imposition function within InDesign, but with a little creativity using the FILE > PRINT BOOKLET we can create a document that can made into a PDF and then printed and assembled into a saddle-stitched book.

This tutorial assumes you will be creating a saddle stitched booklet based on a size that is 8 1/2″ x 11 or smaller.

This tutorial will also be using 2 scenarios: you have the ability to print to PDF (Adobe PDF is listed as printer, or you have other software – Cute PDF for PC is a good one – that provides that ability) OR you DO NOT have the ability to print to PDF – in most cases this will be the MAC OSX platform.

Scenario 1
1. Create the document using facing pages (starts on the right hand, followed by a left hand page facing a right hand page) your document MUST have pages that are multiples of 4.

Facing Pages

2. Go to FILE > PRINT BOOKLET. Select the pages you want to print, either ALL or a range and the type of booklet, this tutorial assumes we will be using 2-up saddle stitch.

3. Select PRINT SETTINGS. For the printer select Adobe PDF (or whatever your PDF printer is called) In the SETUP tab, select the 11×17 paper size and LANDSCAPE as the orientation. Keep the scale 100% for width and height, position the page CENTERED. Click OK

4. Select the PREVIEW button to ensure everything is OK. Scroll through the preview to check all pages.

CORRECT

INCORRECT - InDesign will provide a warning if the selected page size is too small

5. Click PRINT and InDesign will generate a PDF, this can be take to your printer.

The Imposed Document

Scenario 2 (most likely MAC OSX)
Follow steps 1 and 2 above
3. Select PRINT SETTINGS. For the printer select POSTSCRIPT FILE. For PPD select a COLOR printer connected to your system that supports TABLOID (11×17) paper

4. In the SETUP tab, select the 11×17 paper size and LANDSCAPE as the orientation. Keep the scale 100% for width and height, position the page CENTERED. Click OK
5. Select the PREVIEW button to ensure everything is OK. Scroll through the preview to check all pages.
6. Click PRINT and InDesign will prompt you to save the file with the extension of .ps – this is your postscript file.
7. Open Adobe Acrobat Professional and then open the .ps – use the All Files (*.*) option so that you can see the postscript file (*.ps)

8. Once the file is open, go to FILE > SAVE AS and save it as a PDF document, this can be taken to your printer.

Color replacement using the HUE blending mode

ncassway — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:58:17 +0000

For this tutorial we’ll be using the HUE color mode to replace an image’s color without affecting the underlying contrast or luminosity.
1. Create a selection that represents the area you want to adjust. Depending on the image this can be either a straight forward selection using the quick selection tool, magic wand or path tool OR it can be a little more involved that will require editing in the QUICK MASK. Either way we set up, we’ll ensure we provide flexibility into our editing workflow so that we can dynamically adjust the selection later on if we need to. (For the dragon image I used a IMAGE > calculations to create a new channel from the Blue and Green Channels using ADD as the blending mode with an offset of 100 and a scale of 2, then made the new channel high contrast using levels and then finally manually deleting extraneous details. This process yielded a selection that included all of the bright green plus some reflections of the color throughout the image.)

the modified alpha channel to be used as a selection

2. Save the selection. SELECT menu > SAVE SELECTION. Name it if you want or use the default ALPHA 1. If you used calculations to make the Alpha channel you will not need to do this step as calculations made a new channel for you.

3. Load the selection. SELECT menu > LOAD SELECTION > choose your selection.

4. Make a new SOLID FILL ADJUSTMENT LAYER and select an appropriate color (this can be changed anytime)

5. Change the LAYER MODE to HUE. This will retain the color from the adjustment layer and the contrast from the original image. Change the color of the Adjustment Layer by double clicking the Color Fill thumbnail.

6. If you need to edit the selection, click on the Color Fill Layer Mask thumbnail to activate the mask as an alpha channel. Go to the CHANNELS panel, make the alpha channel visible (Color Fill 1 Mask) by clicking on the eyeball icon. You can now use any of the editing tools to modify the mask used for the color adjustment.

the Color Fill Mask made visible and editable

7. Select the RGB channel and uncheck the visibility icon to get back to normal editing.

the final dragon with the green replaced with blue

Grids, Guides, Proportions and InDesign Math

ncassway — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:10:04 +0000

You can get obsessed with grids. Grids act as the skeleton or backbone of most design work and are considered integral to the process of balancing aesthetics with information exchange. Grids are beloved by some and bemoaned by others – some find the rigid parameters invaluable to harmonious design, others find it limiting and constricting. I find myself falling somewhere in the middle – there’s an inner geek inside of me that loves to find a clever way to break up space, but there also the anti-establishment side of my personality that likes to break rules and push the boundaries. For that reason, I like using grids as I see it as an opportunity to act as both lawman and outlaw, I can be both the cops and the robbers.

In the 50′s the international style or Swiss style began to impose an ordered and rational way of organizing information on a page. At the time it was dynamic and refreshing as well as a clever use of mathematics in conjunction with aesthetics. Even though the grid can be cold and limiting, the work is full of expression and represents the culture of the time. I won’t go into a full discourse of the style (I am by no means an expert) as art historians, scholars and design geeks can do a much better job of it.

Just as trends can be reactions to what has come before, aesthetics do likewise. Within the last 60 years or so the pendulum has swung back and forth so many times that what we are left with is simply responding to what we like. Our art and design work is a true reflection of us and not beholden to a universal defining principle imposed by outsider’s rules (an art school friend of mine and I called this non-ism-ism)

If we take this conversation back to grids (and I swear we’ll get to the InDesign stuff very soon) how do you rationalize your own aesthetic? What do you respond to – especially within a design context – that will give your work a sense of individuality that can be relayed back into standard design conventions? One way to begin thinking about this is to reflect on our own sense of proportion. What shape rectangles are you attracted to? What width line represents our idea best? What rectangular shape do you want to have as the driving force in your work? Another art school friend of mine used to make work – no matter what materials he was using – that was always long and sinewy. For whatever reason this proportion made sense to him, perhaps because at the time he was similarly proportioned. Reflecting on this one core aspect will help establish the building blocks for our design work. We can build any underlying grid based on this basic motivation.
There are endless ways to split up a page via grids; Golden section, rules of thirds, complex grids etc.. Every designer should investigate and use them; they are cool, they work and they create harmony. This following tutorials will talk about creating grids in InDesign and also about how to use a proportion of our own invention to establish a grid.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>||<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
1. We’ll start off with a new document and establish a series of columns to divide up the page. Since this tutorial is geared towards my editorial design (magazine) students, we’ll create a new document with a page broken into 12 columns. This amount of columns provides us with a high degree of flexibility; a page can be broken into 2, 3, 4 and 6 columns, we can make a two column main area with a separate side bar area, we can do asymmetrical pairings (7 and 5 columns for instance) etc… there are a great number of possibilities within this arrangement.

In the columns section, the gutter width refers to the amount of space between the columns. This can be tight or loose, or non existent (set to zero) depending on what your desired proportions are.

For now we’ll stick with the default margins of 3p0 (1/2 inch) but we will change them later to accommodate the way we want to break up the page horizontally.
The vertical column grid is not a rule that is set in stone, there are cases where 6 columns would suffice, or 9, or even 13 (if you wanted to give your layout some serious flexibility and asymmetry) In the early stages of the overall layout it is worth experimenting with blocks of placeholder text and solid blocks of color (instead of actual images) to determine what might work best.
2. Setting up the horizontal grid. When we started the document we were only asked to determine the vertical sections, the horizontal sections are defined via the LAYOUT menu > CREATE GUIDES tool.

Within this tool we can define rows as well as columns. Setting up a horizontal grid will provide a sense of consistency, rhythm and proportion to your layout. The grid doesn’t have to be apparent in your final layout, but it gives the document some underlying structure as well as a framework to experiment within.
Here is where our desired proportions can come into play with the layout, if you are thinking long and tall, then perhaps fewer divisions is what you may want use, if you are thinking about squares, then perhaps maybe more divisions. The grid won’t lock you into these proportions – like the vertical grid there is a high degree of flexibility and variety – but it will provide opportunities throughout the layout to return to it.
For our first example we’ll define 6 rows with a gutter of 1p0.
3. The next thing to consider is the baseline grid. This grid will determine the leading (space between baselines of text) in your document. The use of the baseline grid keeps type in adjacent columns and between headlines, pull quotes, captions etc… aligned. To view the baseline grid go to the VIEW menu > GRIDS & GUIDES > SHOW BASELINE GRID, this will bring up a horizontal grid of blue lines that are spaced apart at 12pts or 1p0 – this can be adjusted to any increment we desire via the PREFERENCES > GRIDS setting, but we’ll leave it alone for now. What you will notice is that the baselines do not match up with the horizontal guides we established in step 2.

We’ll make some adjustments to our document to this but first some math.

Hopefully that last sentence doesn’t scare you away. I am not a math person and have been known to mess up very simple equations. That said, InDesign allows you to do simple math right inside the program making it a godsend for those of us that start to get the jitters when we need to add or subtract.

4. Our goal is to somehow align the baseline grid with the horizontal grid. They are both the same width – 1p0 – and the document has roughly the same amount of baselines within each horizontal section – nine. In order to make this work, we’ll have to do some adjustments to the top and bottom margins.
5. For this particular document – one with 12pt baselines, 12pt gutters between horizontal sections and 6 sections the following simple math will take place. Take the number of sections (6) and multiply that by the amount of baselines desired within each section (in this case 9) this will give us 54. Then add the number of horizontal gutters (5) for a grand total of 59. Essentially what we want to do is divide the vertical working area (the space inside the margins) into 59 units, or in this case 59 picas or 59p0. When we look at the document the way it stands now – the overall height is 66p0 (11 inches) with a 3p0 margin at the top and bottom giving us a 60p0 working area. To accommodate our desired horizontal subdivisions we’ll distribute the extra 1p0 into the margins, in this case we’ll adjust the bottom margin to be 4p0.
(LAYOUT menu > MARGINS AND COLUMNS)

Then we’ll go into the LAYOUT menu > CREATE GUIDES again to delete the existing guides and place in some new ones.

Make sure to check Remove Existing Ruler Guides and also ensure the guides are fit to the margins.

What this means is that we can begin our layout and and rest assured that there will be some sort of uniformity in our document and that text and images will fit cleanly into our predetermined spaces (our proportions)

6. Here are some further considerations to make. First, for this particular document keep the leading for all text in increments of 12 OR if you want further possibilities, set the baseline grid to 3pts and use increments of 3 for the leading. Second, to keep the text aligned with the baseline grid you will have to ensure that the align to baseline grid option is checked on the paragraph panel for any text that you want to align to the grid.

Third, for all offsets in the paragraph rules settings, text wraps etc… try to keep to the same baseline distance – whatever it may be – this will further ensure uniformity in the document. Fourth – in regards to column gutter width - it may prove difficult to read columns of text separated by a thin gutter. To remedy this, use the OBJECT menu > TEXT FRAME OPTIONS to divide a large text box into columns and to set a wider gutter width for those columns.
Also, remember, rules are meant to be broken, so establishing this grid structure is extremely worthwhile but the occasional surprise or deviation from it can make the overall document exciting and dynamic.

7. OK, one final example to finish off this post, this is the part where we’ll talk about InDesign math. Let’s say we want to use a baseline of 14pts or 1p2 for the document and again want to divide the document into 6 horizontal sections. Set up a new document with all of the defaults intact; 3p0 for margins etc. Go to the InDesign menu on a MAC or the EDIT menu on a PC and choose PREFERENCES > GRIDS. In here we can change the baseline to 14pts. Also change the start to zero and relative to the top margin.

Then go to the LAYOUT menu > CREATE GUIDES and make 6 rows with a 1p2 gutter fitted to the margins. You will notice that nothing lines up at all. Again, count the number of baselines within one horizontal division (8 in this case) and multiply that by 6 (the number of sections) then add the number of gutters (5) for a grand total of 53. So, for the document we want 53 divisions at equal spacing of 1p2. At this point most of us will pause and scratch our head thinking to ourselves how do we do this multiplication? This is where InDesign math comes in to play. In your document make a rectangular shape of any size, with the object still selected go up to the measurements bar at the top of the screen and for the Height (H) value type in the following 53*1p2 (53 sections times 14 points) Indesign will then do the math for us resulting in 61p10. Then subtract 61p10 from 66p0 (the height of the page) – you can do this directly in the measurements box as well – to find the total amount of top and bottom margin space, in this case 4p2. Now we know that we can change the top margin to 2p0 and the bottom to 2p2 to accommodate our desired baseline and number of horizontal sections. Go to the LAYOUT menu > MARGINS AND COLUMNS to make this adjustment. Then go to the LAYOUT menu > CREATE GUIDES to delete the existing guides and make 6 new horizontal guides with 1p2 gutters.
It should be noted that there is nothing sacred about using a whole number for leading, there are certainly times when a leading of 0p11.5 or 0p10.25 would work – the math can all be done the same way within InDesign.

Questions, comments or corrections? Put them in the comments box below.

A Digital Watermark

ncassway — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 20:45:40 +0000

This tutorial will provide some tips on creating a digital watermark, making alpha channels and using layer adjustments. There are endless variations on this so it would be in your best interest to give yourself time to experiment and play around with settings you like.

1. Prepare a graphic to use in your layout. Preferably the image will be a high contrast grayscale graphic (lots of black and white with minimal gray tones). This can be achieved using IMAGE menu > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS and bringing the black and white points towards the center or using IMAGE menu > ADJUSTMENTS > THRESHOLD and playing with the threshold slider.

2. Place or copy the graphic you want to use as your watermark into your layout. Move, rotate or scale the image to its desired location.

3. If you have placed the image, you will need to rasterize the image prior to the next step. LAYER menu > SMART OBJECT > RASTERIZE or LAYER menu > RASTERIZE> SMART OBJECT.
4. Fill the entire background of the layer holding the graphic with white. EDIT menu > FILL: use WHITE, blending BEHIND. This will put white pixels behind the graphic as if you painted on the backside of a piece of glass.

5. Select the entire layer – SELECT menu > ALL or command/ctrl+A and cut it from the document – EDIT menu > CUT or command/ctrl+X. Delete the placed objects layer which will now be empty.
6. Go to the channels panel, make a new alpha channel and EDIT menu > PASTE or command/ctrl+V into the new channel.

7. Invert the channel – IMAGE menu > ADJUSTMENTS > INVERT or command/ctrl+I. This will make a proper alpha channel where white represents editable areas and black will be protected areas.
8. Load the selection – SELECT menu > LOAD SELECTION: channel ALPHA 1 (or whatever you may have named it) You can also quick load the selection by command/ctrl clicking on the alpha channel thumbnail.

9. In the LAYERS panel make a new Solid Color Adjustment layer. This will allow you to dynamically change the color of the watermark throughout the editing process, it will also use the selection as a mask specifically for that adjustment layer. Use the eydropper tool to sample the background color and then adjust the color to make a low contrast watermark.

10. The EDIT menu > TRANSFORM tools can be used to further move, scale, rotate, skew, etc… the graphic.
11. Further color adjustment can be made by double clicking the solid fill thumbnail and adjusting the color.

Unheralded Moments of the Creative Process

ncassway — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:28:06 +0000

When we think about the Creative Process, we typically think about the more positive or at least productive aspects: visioning, execution, decision making, consideration, experimentation. These are all skills that are the focus of classes at school and in furthering our professional professional development. This is critical knowledge for us creative folk.
But what of negative aspects of the creative process, the one’s which on the surface don’t feel as if they are productive: failure, discouragement, procrastination, justification? They all factor into how ideas move forward (although some may make us feel as if we’re moving backwards – or want to give up all together) and should be embraced as skills as the aspects listed above.
As this collection of thoughts expands through these blog posts, I hope to explore all of the aspects of the creative process and certainly welcome the input of friends and strangers alike to help me elaborate on them.

Photoshop Tutorial – Halftones…and beyond

ncassway — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 03:43:21 +0000

A student of mine wanted to create text that had an old school analog halftone look. While the Photoshop Halftone filter does an adequate job, it is fairly limited and doesn’t allow for a full range of experimentation and exploration.

This tutorial will take a look at the Bitmap image mode to achieve the desired result and will also show some fun variations with the tool.
First off, Bitmap refers to a method of creating images that are composed of pixels that are Black or White, in reality the the pixel is either On (Black) or Off (White) it’s also sometimes referred to as a 1-Bit image.
Let’s start off making the text that we have at the top of this post.
1. Make a new file in Photoshop (I used the default photoshop size, but you can of course use any size you like)
2. Type in your desired text and make it large enough to stretch across the canvas (I used Futura Extra Bold)
3. Flatten your image. LAYER menu > FLATTEN IMAGE, or apple/control + E
4. Apply the Gaussian Blur Filter to the text. FILTER menu > BLUR > GAUSSIAN BLUR. For this I used a setting of 3.3 to achieve a significant, but not over the top soft edge – you can certainly vary this based on your own needs and preferences.

5. Convert the image to Grayscale. IMAGE menu > MODE > GRAYSCALE (you have to do this intermediary step as you can only convert to Bitmap from Grayscale) Photoshop may ask you if you really want to discard the color information. Yes, you really want to discard the color.
Let’s stop here to take a look at the Bitmap conversion mode.

There are 5 different methods for converting to Bitmap. 50% Threshold means the image is converted into areas of black and white and delineates black vs white by making the threshold point exactly in the middle of the histogram map (The IMAGE menu > ADJUSTMENTS > THRESHOLD command allows you to modify this breaking point)
Pattern Dither uses a uniform pattern to represent levels of gray.

pattern dither

Diffusion Dither uses a random pattern to represent levels of gray.

diffusion dither

Halftone Screen uses preset patterns (round, diamond, ellipse, line, square or cross) at frequencies and angles that can be varied as well.

Custom Pattern allows you to use any of your pattern presets (or one that you create) to be the basis for the bitmap conversion.
6. Let the fun begin. Convert the image to Bitmap. IMAGE menu > MODE>BITMAP and use the Halftone Pattern option. For our example, we’ll use the round shape (to achieve the old school dot pattern) with a frequency of 20 lines per inch (which will make the dots an average size) and the angle set to 45. This is a great opportunity to experiment with different settings, especially the frequency (smaller numbers will make the patterns larger) and the shape. The only drawback to this is that there is no preview option which means you will have to apply the conversion and if you don’t like it – undo it and try something again.
7. Now, let’s get it back it into the world of color. Go to the IMAGE menu > MODE > GRAYSCALE, then IMAGE menu > MODE > RGB.
8. Crop your image close to the text.
9. To apply the color gradient as in the example (or a color overlay) make a copy of the background layer by dragging the layer to the new layer icon on the layer palette.

10. For the background copy layer, click the FX icon at the bottom of Layer Palette and select gradient overlay. Choose a gradient you like (or make a new one), set the blending mode to Screen (this will allow the gradient to affect only the black and leave the white alone) and continue to play around with all the other gradient controls. If you use only the color overlay, make sure the blending mode is set to Screen as well.

Some variations
I like to use the line halftone for photographs, especially a lower frequency line count. The thick and thin variations of the line that defines different shades of gray is really cool.

For this image I used a frequency of 8 lines per inch with the lines set to 90 degrees (and with a red color overlay)

A fun variation is to make a pattern from the image you are using and then convert to Bitmap using custom pattern.
1. Open up an image you want to play with (a portrait or close up works well)
2. Duplicate the image. IMAGE menu > DUPLICATE.
3. In the new copy, change the image size so that the image is tiny (around 40 pixels wide or so – you’ll have to play with it to make it work for your purposes) IMAGE menu > IMAGE SIZE > change pixel dimension width to your desired size, make sure resample image is checked.
4. Select all. SELECT menu > ALL or Apple/Control + A then EDIT menu > DEFINE PATTERN, this will take the condensed version of the image and make it a pattern.
5. Go back to the original and convert it to grayscale and then convert it to Bitmap. Use Custom Pattern as the method and select your new pattern. Now your image has been converted to Black and White using itself as the pattern.
6. Convert back to grayscale and then to RGB.
7. Print it out to show your friends how awesome you are!

click the image above for a full size version

This is only the tip of the iceberg and there are truly endless possibilities with this. ENJOY!

Homage to MacPaint..

ncassway — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:11:28 +0000

…or why I made an Illustrator swatch set of the original Macpaint patterns

In 1984 when my older brother started his freshman year at Drexel University, every student was given a Macintosh computer. This was the original Mac, the one with one floppy drive and 128K of memory! Playing with this machine was a revelation for my 10th grade self, and when my brother wasn’t using it for his school work, I was able to mess with it way into the evening to create comics.
The comic was Nick the Punk Fish, a named coined by a camp counselor who somehow thought it would be funny if the comic was named after me (Nick the Punk Fish was also known by his acronym NTPF. ) In my adolescent joy, I thought my NTPF comics were pretty hysterical (or so stupid, that they were worth laughing about) and I would work industriously on trying to complete entire stories (I think there are two total) This was no easy feat as this was rudimentary computer graphics which meant having to be pretty crafty. (A full story is posted below for all you NTPF enthusiasts out there)
Recently I was looking through Illustrator swatch patterns to find some basic bitmap style patterns (in the style of MacPaint) and could find any, so I decided to make them myself. You can download them here.
To use them, open up Illustrator and make a new document, open the swatches palette (WINDOW menu > SWATCHES if it is not visible) then click on the menu for SWATCHES, go to OPEN SWATCH LIBRARY then go to OTHER. From here you can load any Illustrator file with saved custom swatches, but in this case you will open macpaint_pattern_swatches.ai. ENJOY!

Nick the Punk Fish in the Attack of the Killer Paisleys

Photoshop/InDesign Tutorial – Create a super-duper black graphic

ncassway — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:33:03 +0000

To provide yourself some flexibility in InDesign with scanned graphics – changing colors to match swatches, using graphics as knockouts etc.. graphics need to be converted to a superblack – or in this case a super-duper black – a CMYK file with all levels of ink at 100%

1. Import graphic via scan/download etc.
2. Adjust the levels the on scan if necessary by dragging the black and white points towards the center and making the image high contrast – meaning there are distinct black and white areas and shades of gray are minimized. (For a downloaded QR code this will not be necessary) IMAGE menu > ADJUSTMENTS > LEVELS

3. Convert the file to CMYK – IMAGE menu >MODE>CMYK.
4. Select all SELECT menu>ALL or apple/cntrl + A and then cut (EDIT menu > CUT or apple/cntrl + X.)
5. Create a new alpha channel and paste the graphic into the new alpha channel (EDIT menu > PASTE or apple/cntrl + V.) Ensure that Alpha 1 is the current editing layer (it will be highlighted in light blue)

6. Invert the graphic within the new alpha channel – IMAGE menu > ADJUSTMENTS > INVERT.
7. Create the super-duper black. Open the Color Palette (WINDOW menu > COLOR) Change the sliders to CMYK – click on the palette menu and select CMYK SLIDERS. Slide all values to 100%

8. Select the CMYK channel as the current editing space (CMYK will be highlighted in blue in the channels palette.) Load the alpha channel as a selection – go to the SELECT menu > LOAD SELECTION and select Alpha 1.

9. Fill the selection with the foreground color. EDIT menu > FILL > use FOREGROUND COLOR.
10. Save your file.
11. Place your graphic into an InDesign document. FILE menu > PLACE and scale to a desired size.
12. Change the color of the content frame to a swatch color (you won’t see a difference at this point because the graphic still has a white background)
13. Open the effects palette – WINDOW menu > EFFECTS, select the graphic with the white arrow and in the effects palette change the blending mode to SCREEN. This will keep the white opaque and make the super-duper black assume the color of the content frame’s fill.

14. For white lines to appear for your graphic (as in the image at the top of this post), DO NOT INVERSE the alpha channel in step 6

Photoshop Tutorial – Photoshop Cross Fader

ncassway — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 03:46:11 +0000

So, my friend Mike writes me again
Yo Nick-baby,

I thought I could figure out my photoshop trick to have five pictures blend seamlessly into one another, but no can do. I re-learned how to make and use adjustment layers, and how to use a gradient to mask the amount of the adjustment that shows through…..but how do i set up an adjustment layer for opacity/transparency?

thanks,
-mk

Mike, I can help you!

Here’s how to do it.
1. Open two (or more) images in Photoshop
2 Go to IMAGE menu > CANVAS SIZE. Expand the canvas size for the file that will have the picture at the furthest left. Lock the image to the left side and change the horizontal units to percentage and change the width to at least 200% (you will crop this at the end) if you are using more than two pictures change the percentage to something larger (you can always expand the canvas later)

3. Drag the 2nd picture to this file – resize if necessary. If your files have opened in Tabs (as is the default these days in Photoshop) and you are finding it hard to drag one file into another, go to the WINDOW menu > ARRANGE > FLOAT ALL IN WINDOWS. This will allow you to move the windows around easier.
4. In layer 2, temporarily change the opacity to %50 – you will do this so you can see the where the images overlap. Slide the left side of layer 2 over the right side of layer 1 to a desired position.

Let the cross fading begin.
5. In layer 2, create a layer mask.

6. Select the gradient tool

and select the black to white gradient. Ensure the mode is set to normal, opacity is set to 100% and make sure reverse is not checked.

6. In the layer mask, draw the gradient from the left side of the overlap to the right.

NOTE: make sure you are doing this in the layer mask (the new thumbnail to the right of the layer 2 thumbnail) you will know you are in the mask as opposed to the layer if the black brackets are around its corners.
7. Change the opacity of layer 2 back to 100%, crop the image if necessary.
ANOTHER NOTE: With the mask linked to the layer (you will see a chain icon between the two) you can continue to reposition the overlap and maintain the fade out on the left hand side of layer 2.
HOW THIS WORKS: A layer mask is a way of hiding or revealing parts of layer. Areas of the mask that are black will hide the content whereas white will not hide at all, shades of gray will hide based on its luminosity level. The smooth transition of the gradient creates a seamless fading effect.

InDesign Tutorial #5 – Transparency

ncassway — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 03:16:18 +0000

A student asked if it would be possible to convert a drawing from full color to black and white in InDesign. The answer is “of course you can but why would you want to do it when you have better tools in Photoshop?” The method uses InDesign’s effects Palette to do the conversion which is why this questions lends itself nicely to making a tutorial exploring Transparency.
Let’s get the question out of the way first and then we’ll make a more thorough exploration of Transparency.
1. Make a new document and then place (FILE menu > PLACE) in a color photograph, I’m going to use this image of a toy robot, but you can of course use any image of your choosing.
2. Select the placed image with the selection tool (black arrow) and change the fill color of the content box to black, paper or registration (it doesn’t matter which)
3. Select the image with the direct selection tool (white arrow) and change the blending mode for Graphic in the effects palette to “Luminosity”

Why does this work? The blending mode Luminosity will take the Hue (color) and Saturation (color intensity) from the base – in this case black or paper – and use the luminosity (the black and white information) from the graphic. In this case, since black and paper have no saturation info it turns the graphic into a black and white image. However, if you’re really serious about black and white, I would highly recommend using the Black and White adjustment tool in Photoshop as it gives you the highest level of control over the resulting image.
But that’s not to say we can’t make adjustments in InDesign and get some interesting effects. Let’s see what else we can do with just Transparency.
4. Make a copy of the image you placed into InDesign. Select it with the Black Arrow and in the effects palette change the Fill to a lower percentage, this will begin to add color back into the image but keep it desaturated – this is the equivalent of using the Hue and Saturation adjustment in Photoshop and lowering the saturation setting.
As we can see, InDesign allows us to change the Transparency of not just the entire object, but the stroke, fill and when applicable the graphic filling the object as well as Text.

5. Copy the original object again, this time change the fill color from black, paper or registration to a swatch color or one of your choosing. With the graphic blending mode still set to Luminosity the image will create a mock Duotone – a two tone image made up of a color and black.

6. For this next example we’ll use a black and white original image with the Screen setting. Place in this graphic of a grunge texture, change the fill of the graphic frame to something other than paper or black. Select the image with the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow) and change the blending mode in the Effects Palette to Screen. The darkest tones in the image now are the most opaque version of the fill color, the lightest tones then get mapped to lighter versions all the way down to white. I think this is really useful when you want a solid color in your layout but need a little grunge or noise introduced to make it look not so flat.

7. This next example will use the transparency settings for text. Place a black and white image into InDesign, you can use this one of my cat “Miss Kitty” if you’d like. Create a new text box and type something into it (“Kitty” for instance) change the typeface to something big and chunky (I used Impact for this example and change the point size to something like 144pt. Highlight the text and change the color to the Yellow Swatch, then select the text box itself and make sure the fill is set to none. Move the text box over the image of Miss Kitty. With the text box still selected, open the Effects palette and change the Text blending mode to Overlay (Overlay will either multiply – make darker areas darker – the base image or screen – make lighter areas lighter- based on the original image,middle gray will have no effect.) Since yellow is lighter than most of the base color of Miss Kitty, it lightens up areas that the text overlaps the image.

8. Final Example. We’ll call this one the fashiony splatter effect. For this either clear out your current InDesign page or make a new page and download these two images malemodel.jpg and splatter.jpg. Place malemodel.jpg into your page (it’s sized at 8.5 x 11 so it will fit the entire page) In the layers palette lock the current layer and make a new one.

Place splatter.jpg into your page (again, it’s sized at 8.5 x 11 so it will fit the entire page) With the content box still selected, change the fill color to one of your color swatches (I used Cyan) You won’t see a change at this point because the splatter graphic is not on a transparent background. Select the graphic with the Direct Selection Tool (white arrow), in the Effects palette change the blending mode for graphics to Screen, the blacks in the splatter graphic will now be replaced with tints of the Cyan swatch. Finally, to make the white disappear from the background of the splatter image, select the content box with the Selection Tool (black arrow) and in the Effects palette, change the blending mode of object to Multiply.

I like creating overlays this way in InDesign (as opposed to Photoshop) for compositions as it gives a high degree of flexibility and I can match my swatches without any problems. There are endless ways to play around with Transparency and I encourage you to experiment with the possibilities. As a reference, I have included descriptions of all the blending modes available in InDesign below.

Blending mode options
The blending modes control how the base color, the underlying color in the artwork, interacts with the blend color, the color of the selected object or group of objects. The resulting color is the color resulting from the blend.
Normal
Colors the selection with the blend color, without interaction with the base color. This is the default mode.
Multiply
Multiplies the base color by the blend color. The resulting color is always a darker color. Multiplying any color with black produces black. Multiplying any color with white leaves the color unchanged. The effect is similar to drawing on a page with multiple magic markers.
Screen
Multiplies the inverse of the blend and base colors. The resulting color is always a lighter color. Screening with black leaves the color unchanged. Screening with white produces white. The effect is similar to projecting multiple slide images on top of each other.
Overlay
Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing artwork, preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color while mixing in the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.
Soft Light
Darkens or lightens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a diffused spotlight on the artwork.
If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the artwork is lightened, as if it were dodged. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the artwork is darkened, as if it were burned in. Painting with pure black or white produces a distinctly darker or lighter area, but does not result in pure black or white.
Hard Light
Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the blend color. The effect is similar to shining a harsh spotlight on the artwork.
If the blend color (light source) is lighter than 50% gray, the artwork is lightened, as if it were screened. This is useful for adding highlights to artwork. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the artwork is darkened, as if it were multiplied. This is useful for adding shadows to artwork. Painting with pure black or white results in pure black or white.
Color Dodge
Brightens the base color to reflect the blend color. Blending with black produces no change.
Color Burn
Darkens the base color to reflect the blend color. Blending with white produces no change.
Darken
Selects the base or blend color—whichever is darker—as the resulting color. Areas lighter than the blend color are replaced, and areas darker than the blend color do not change.
Lighten
Selects the base or blend color—whichever is lighter—as the resulting color. Areas darker than the blend color are replaced, and areas lighter than the blend color do not change.
Difference
Subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value. Blending with white inverts the base color values; blending with black produces no change.
Exclusion
Creates an effect similar to, but lower in contrast than, the Difference mode. Blending with white inverts the base color components. Blending with black produces no change.
Hue
Creates a color with the luminance and saturation of the base color and the hue of the blend color.
Saturation
Creates a color with the luminance and hue of the base color and the saturation of the blend color. Painting with this mode in an area with no saturation (gray) produces no change.
Color
Creates a color with the luminance of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color. This preserves the gray levels in the artwork, and is useful for coloring monochrome artwork and for tinting color artwork.
Luminosity
Creates a color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color. This mode creates an inverse effect from that of the Color mode.