Adobe Design Basics 2021
Adobe Design Basics 2021
Adobe Design Basics 2021
I L L U S T R AT O R
PHOTOSHOP
INDESIGN
XD
2
T PAY N E
3
Adobe Design Basics
2021 versions
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Xd
THOMAS PAYNE
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
1 The Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Illustrator Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8 InDesign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
9 Xd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
ADOB E CC DES IG N BA S IC S i
Preface
PR EFAC E iii
that Adobe has a habit of changing the interface
around frequently. The buttons might not be exactly
how they are described here.
iv PR E FAC E
Repetition is key to learning, and there are several
pages at the end of each chapter which will help you
learn. The first is the review, where all of the concepts
in the chapter are reviewed in list form. You can work
through these, making sure you know them all, and
referring back to the chapter if you do not.
Thomas Payne
January, 2021
PR EFAC E v
1 The Applications
The Languages
If there is a way to draw on the computer which is just
like a pen on paper, then no one has come up with
it yet. Instead, there are two rather unintuitive ways
of drawing a line (or anything else) with a computer.
One is vector drawing. The other is bitmap drawing.
C H AP T ER 1: THE A PPLICATIONS 1
The building blocks filled in by locating these squares by row and column.
of bitmapped This exactly how computers describe a bitmap draw-
images are called ing.
pixels, a name
derived from Neither vector nor bitmap drawing is the best way to
‘picture elements’. make a mark in every situation. We need them both
for different situations. As you can see from the pho-
tograph of Aunt Judy below, a bitmap representation
of her works best. In other words, it would be easier
to replicate a photo of Aunt Judy using graph paper
than it would using lines and points. As long as the
graph paper had small enough squares.
Aunt Judy
rendered as
bitmap (left) and
as vector (right).
A circle rendered
as bitmap (left)
and as vector
(right).
2 C H A P T E R 1 : T H E AP P L I CAT I ON S
Adobe Illustrator
Illustrator is perhaps a little misnamed... But then
again, it has a better name than something like ‘Ado-
be Single Page Layout Program that Excels in Flexibil-
ity’.
C H AP T ER 1: THE A PPLICATIONS 3
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is a bitmap application, meaning it is good
for things like Aunt Judy, or just about anything with
continuous ranges of tones like photographs. Photo-
shop uses the graph paper-like way of drawing, which
means that unless the squares of the graph paper
you happen to be using are not small enough, those
squares (pixels) are going to be visible to the naked
eye (usually not a good thing).
Adobe InDesign
InDesign is the application you should use if you have
multiple pages to lay out, need very fine automatic
control over typography, and a high level of consis-
tency. Like Illustrator, it is also a vector-based appli-
cation, so things made with it look good at any size.
Actually, InDesign is so much like Illustrator that stu-
dents will sometimes open the wrong application and
work in it for a while before they realize it.
4 C H A P T E R 1 : T H E AP P L I CAT I ON S
(like this book). It is also used when fine controls over
typography are required. Think of it like Microsoft
Word, but with a level of control many times greater.
Go ahead and open up InDesign, and as you did with
Illustrator, make a few things just to get a bit of the
feel of the application.
Adobe Xd
Since the design of web pages and applications in-
cludes interactive elements (such as clicks), Adobe
Xd is used. It is basically a trimmed-down Illustrator
with interactive features. Although Xd cannot actu-
ally make a website or application, it does allow the
design of one.
C H AP T ER 1: THE A PPLICATIONS 5
well. This book attempts to lead you through the ba-
sic features of the applications so that you can also
learn the more important design aspect with mini-
mum frustration. We are ‘sharpening up the saw’ so
to speak.
6 C H A P T E R 1 : T H E AP P L I CAT I ON S
Chapter 1 Practice
Open up each of the applications and play around.
Pay attention as you play. Think of the tools and tech-
niques as puzzles, and you are out to solve those
puzzles. You don’t need to save anything, and you
can’t break anything by messing around.
C H AP T ER 1: THE A PPLICATIONS 7
2 Illustrator Basics
The Workspace
Like all the applications we will be working with, Il-
lustrator uses different areas of the workspace for
different things. Go ahead and open Illustrator, then
quickly make a new document by clicking on one of
the page sizes at the bottom of the splash-screen.
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 9
would like to supplement your learning or review
things, these video tutorials may help you.
There are more tools in the tool panel than you might
think at first. Many are hidden under other tools.
Tools that have other tools hidden behind them are
marked with a small triangle at the bottom right of
A New Document
Close the window you were working on (by clicking
the X in the window tab at the top left) and let's learn
more about a document. Go to File > New, and take
a quick look at the splash screen that shows up. First
select Print at the top of the window, then change the
units on the right to a measurement system you are
familiar with. Either choose a letter-size sheet in the
presets (it has probably defaulted to that) or speci-
fy the size and orientation of your sheet at the right
of the box. You will also see an option for selecting
the number of artboards. An artboard is like a sheet
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 11
of paper. You may want to use multiple artboards for
many reasons, but for now one is just fine. You can
always add them later if you need them.
At any rate, after you click Create you will have a vir-
tual sheet of paper that you can work on. Now save
your document by going to File > Save (On Your Com-
puter). There are a couple of reasons for saving your
Make sure you document before you start working on it. The first is
know where you that Illustrator has been known to crash, and if you
are saving files! get into the habit of saving early and often, you will
have a much better chance of having less to redo. The
second reason has to do with files you may place into
Illustrator. We will get to that later. For now just save
often.
Making a line
The things we will be learning in this chapter are not
very exciting, but they are important foundations you
need. In the toolbox, choose the tool that looks like a
fountain pen nib without a squiggly line. It is the pen
tool. Now, click somewhere on your virtual sheet of
paper (don’t drag, just click), then click somewhere
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 13
To change the color of the line, click on the small box
to the left of Stroke. This panel deserves a little con-
sideration, but first click on several colors to change
the color of your line.
Modifying a Line
The first thing we will modify about our line (in ad-
dition to the stroke weight and stroke color) is the
placement of line. The selection tool should be still
selected—if not, select it. Now click on your line, hold
down the mouse button, and drag it to another place
on the page. Do it again, but this time hold down the
option key as you move the line. Your arrow cursor
should change to a double-pointer to indicate it will Almost all key
copy the line. Let up on the option key after you have strokes done in
let go of the mouse button or trackpad. Get used to combination with
holding down keys like this when you perform an ac- the mouse require
tion. Illustrator (and the other applications) uses this you to let go of
technique a lot, and for many students it is just down- the key after the
right unintuitive. mouse button
is released!
The selection tool lets you choose and move things
(objects) in Illustrator. The direct selection tool (right
next to or under the selection tool—the solid pointer)
lets you select and move the parts (the points) of an
object. Using the direct selection tool, click on either
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 15
the beginning or the end of your line. The small hol-
low box that represents a point on your line should
fill in to indicate that it is selected. The other end of
your line should have a hollow point to indicate it is
A hollow point not selected. If this is not the case, click off the line to
indicates not deselect everything then click back on the beginning
selected, a filled or end to select the point and drag to move the point
point indicates somewhere else. Your line will follow.
selected.
Every object in Illustrator is made up of points and
To click and drag line(s) coming out of those points. Your line is made
means you hold with two points. Now select both points with the di-
down on the rect selection tool. To select multiple points in Il-
mouse or trackpad lustrator you can either drag your mouse to make
while you are a box encompassing both points or you can select
moving the cursor. one point, then while holding down the shift key se-
lect the other. Practice both ways. When you move
a point with both points selected (filled in), you are
moving the whole line (with the same effect as mov-
ing the line using the selection tool).
Saving a File
Now you should probably save your document. Since
you have saved it before, all you really need to do is
go to File > Save, and it will overwrite your last ver-
sion (which had nothing on it). But for now, do a little
more. Go to File > Save As.
There are several formats you can save your file in. At this point
Adobe Illustrator (.ai) is the one you will use most, saving to Cloud
but the Adobe PDF (.pdf) is also important. Documents is not
recommended,
PDFs are files that retain all of their design and infor- especially
mation, but can be emailed, put on a disk, or posted when we get to
on a web page. They can be opened and seen just the importing images.
way they looked on your screen by just about anyone
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 17
with a computer. It would be hard to overestimate the
importance of PDFs in today’s communication. For
now, cancel the save, as we are not going to use PDF
now because we want to open this file back up in Il-
lustrator, and for that job, the Illustrator format is
best.
Now zoom back out to see your whole page. The op-
tion key switches a tool to something you might also
want to do with the tool. In the case of the zoom tool, The option key
holding down option changes the tool from an enlarg- often performs
ing tool to a reducing tool. You can also double-click the second most
on the zoom tool itself to bring the page to actual wanted thing
size. And if you double-click on the hand tool itself (option) with
it will reduce the page to fit in the window you have the tool that is
(two commonly used views). being used.
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 19
Preferences & Help
You may have noticed that nudging the point either
made it go too far or not far enough. How the appli-
cation behaves is governed by the preferences. Go to
Illustrator > Preferences > General.
Preferences In the resulting box the first thing you will see is Key-
only govern board Increment—this is how far each push of an ar-
the document row key will nudge an anchor or an object. Look at
you currently some of the other things. Check out the other sec-
have open. To tions of preferences by clicking on the categories on
apply them to the left. Most will not make sense to you (don’t worry
all documents, about it), but some will.
change them with
no document open. While we are at it, check out an important menu by
going to Help > Illustrator Help. Adobe help is some-
times daunting to use since they integrate their own
material with community material, but the User
Guide (on right) will give you a ready resource.
Arranging Objects
You should have several (or many!) lines (objects)
floating around on the page you are experimenting
with. If you don’t, make some more. Color at least
three of your lines differently, make them thick (by
changing the stroke width), then move them so that
they lie on top of each other somewhat like the illus-
tration at left. You will notice that the most recent line
you made lies on top of the other lines and the oldest
line you made lies at the bottom of the other lines. Ev-
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 21
ery object you make automatically has a stacking or-
der, as if they were on sheets of clear plastic. If they
didn’t, Illustrator would not know how to treat the ar-
eas where lines overlap.
Grouping Objects
Another thing we will need as our drawings get more
complicated is a way to combine several objects so
that they move and copy as if they were one object.
With all three lines selected, go to Object > Group.
Now Illustrator treats the objects as one. Select any
of the lines and all will be selected, copy any of the
lines and they all will copy.
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 23
rectangle—and any other shape—behaves just like
your lines.
Type
Design applications would be nothing without ac-
cess to all of those symbols we rely on so heavily and
which make up words. Using the type tool, drag a box
within part of your page. This text box comes filled
with Latin text—just start typing to replace it. Illus-
trator will now act as a word processing application
within that box. The properties panel now has two
sub-panels to control the type style and paragraph
formatting. Try changing the type style and size. You
can do this by either selecting some type within the
box with the type tool or by selecting the box itself
using the selection tool.
InDesign
While we are on the subject of type, let's take a quick
look at an application that excels in it. Open InDe-
sign and make a new document as you did in Illustra-
tor (specify letter size and vertical). Now make some
type exactly the same way as you did in Illustrator.
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 25
While you are at it, do some other things in InDesign
that you did in Illustrator. The point here is that InDe-
sign functions very much the same as Illustrator. We
will not be covering InDesign more until a later chap-
ter, but in a way you will be learning about InDesign
as you learn about Illustrator. There are very impor-
tant differences in the two applications, but as far as
the basics go, they are very similar.
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 27
Chapter 2 Review
A good way to go back over this chapter is to work
through this review to see if you know how to do every-
thing in it.
The Workspace
menu items, workspace setting
tool panel and ‘hidden’ tools
tearing off associated tools
properties panel, accessing panels
A New Document
new document box, disclosure triangle
saving a file
Making a Line
pen tool
selection tool, selecting and deselecting an object
changing the weight and color of a line (stroke)
Points as a unit of measure
changing value boxes by entering numbers
Modifying a Line
moving and copying an object, option key
direct selection tool
selected point is filled, deselected is hollow
selecting multiple points by dragging box
selecting multiple points using shift key
corner anchor points
keyboard shortcuts
deleting objects or points
Arranging Objects
stacking order, send to front, to back
move forward and backward
Grouping Objects
making a group out of several objects
making groups of groups, un-grouping
isolation mode
Filled Objects
rectangle tool, changing stroke and fill of an object
modifying location of points on a filled object
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 29
Making a Closed Shape
multiple clicks to extend line
cursor hints to see what will happen if you click
closing shape before applying a fill
Type
making a text box
character and paragraph options in properties panel
InDesign
making a text box
similarities of Illustrator and InDesign
Playing
perspective grid
closing document and opening a new one
Take two large lines and a large circle to make the il-
lustration at left. Nudge the elements to get them ex-
act (using a zoomed-in view).
C H AP T E R 2: ILLUSTR ATOR BA S IC S 31
Chapter 2 Practice
We don’t have many tools under our belt for Illustra-
tor, but we do have enough to make some pretty nice
things. Using the techniques in this chapter (and any
more you may have happened upon), do a design pri-
marily using lines.
Making a
smooth anchor
point by
clicking and
dragging.
This is what you should see as you draw the line. You
might be wondering what those other lines are. You
might be totally confused. That’s okay for now. Just
move your pen somewhere else and click again to
make another corner point.
At right is a line
made with two
corner anchor
points and
one smooth
anchor point.
34 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
The points at the end of the two straight lines extend-
ing from your smooth anchor point are called han-
dles. These determine two things: The smoothness
of the curve (slope) and the direction the line takes
as it exits the point.
Play around with these handles and see what hap- Sometimes when
pens. You should see that as you make the handles selecting an
shorter, the line exiting the point does so at a sharp- anchor point you
er angle. As a matter of fact, if you move a handle have to click off the
very close to the anchor point, it should behave as if it shape, then click
were a corner anchor point. As you move the handle back on the point.
around, you should notice that your line tries to fol-
low the direction you moved the handle. It can’t fol-
low it absolutely since the line has to end at the cor-
ner point on the other side of it.
36 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
Now go back to the pen tool. By clicking on an exist-
ing selected line with the pen tool a point is added,
and by clicking on an existing point with the pen tool,
that point is deleted. Watch the cursor closely as you
move the pen tool over a point or over a selected line
or shape to see what will happen if you click.
These are all the tools you will need to make and
modify shapes. But they do take practice. Draw a
simple arc and edit it as below. These exercises may
not seem important, but they will help you under-
stand how these points work.
Now get the hang of drawing with the pen tool. Make
it a circle with 2 points by following the three steps
below. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect, as you can al-
ways edit it after you make it. We will get to how
to view a grid like
the one shown
here. Before we
do, see if you can
figure it out for
Now a more difficult shape with instructions below: yourself (Hint:
View Menu).
With the pen tool, drag a handle out for your first
point. Then click directly below your first point to
Most Important
This step is very Now is a good time to stop following the directions
important! and strike out on your own to practice the pen tool
38 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
and the associated editing tools. Draw and edit dif-
ferent shapes like a...
key cell phone
paper clip pen
push-pin car outline
knife shovel
padlock etcetera...
40 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
un-checking Smart Guides. Like the Window menu,
the view menu is very helpful. Try some other options.
42 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
There is one problem with using both of these meth-
ods. Illustrator does not know if you would like to
make the stroke of your object bigger or smaller
along with the object or not. You generally do want
to scale the stroke along with your object, so go to
Illustrator > Preferences > General, and check Scale
Strokes & Effects in the right column. This will also let
you get used to going to the preferences. They are
important in any application. Remember that
preferences set
The third way of scaling is the most versatile, but is when a document
the slowest. Either double-click the scale tool itself is open will
or go to Object > Transform > Scale... Both ways will only pertain to
bring up the same requester box where you can spec- that document.
ify an exact percentage to scale (check Preview to see Without a
the effect). You can also copy the object while you document open
scale it and specify whether you want to scale the the preference will
stroke along with the object regardless of the way the pertain to all future
preferences are set. new documents.
The origin of the With both scaling and rotating you can repeat the
transform (scale last transformation by going to Object > Transform >
or rotate) that you Transform Again. Practice this by making a line or a
set by clicking is shape. Use the rotate tool to place the source of the
important, but very rotation (by clicking) near the end of the line, then
subtly shown. drag to rotate a bit while holding down the option
key (to copy). Go to Object > Transform > Transform
Again to repeat the transformation. You can also use
the key command to do transform again, which is (as
always) listed next to the menu item.
44 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
Use the reflect tool to make another heart. First make
a half-heart by using two corner points and one curve
point as in the example at left, then click the selec-
tion tool to stop drawing. Now using the reflect tool,
click once near the center of the heart to set the cen-
ter for the reflection. Hold down option (to copy) and
drag to reflect the side of the heart. Holding down
shift as well makes you want more fingers, but it will
make our reflection much more accurate by snapping
the reflection to the correct angle.
Connecting Lines
We now need to connect the two parts of the heart.
Zoom in on the bottom two points, and with the pen
tool, put your mouse cursor over one of the ends. The
cursor will show a forward slash next to it when you
are ready to continue the line (which we are going
to do).
46 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
More transform
controls are in the
properties panel
as shown at left.
48 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
Chapter 3 Review
Corner and Smooth Anchor Points
clicking while drawing to make a corner anchor
clicking and dragging to make a smooth anchor
handles of a smooth anchor (slope and direction)
making and editing points of an ellipse (circle)
clicking or dragging to make a closed shape
Practice
making and editing simple objects
Connecting Lines
continuing a line with the pen tool
connecting two lines with the pen tool
More
experimenting to find useful tools and techniques
50 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
Chapter 3 Sample Quiz
Copy this line and convert the upper points into curve
points as shown.
52 C H A P T E R 3: IL LU ST RATOR PAT H S
4 Illustrator Type
Re-sizing
type area.
Re-sizing
point type.
54 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
Now when you drag the corners of the box with the Sorry to bring this
selection tool the text will enlarge and reduce instead up again, but a
of flowing within the box. As a matter of fact, the text common mistake
will act just like any other object you have made in is to let go of the
Illustrator. Hold down the shift key while you drag shift key before
to constrain proportions of the type (you should al- you let go of the
ways do this), or option-drag to copy the type. Or use mouse. Always
the rotate tool or any other tool as you did with a line let go of the
or closed object. Even with the type diagonal and re- mouse (trackpad)
versed it will remain able to be edited by just clicking BEFORE you let go
inside the type with the type tool. of the shift key!
Character Options
In Chapter 1 you explored part of the character sec-
tion of the properties panel. Let’s look at it a bit more
and how it can effect both area and point type. Re-
member that to make any changes in Illustrator you
56 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
Although this book is not about design, several de-
sign concepts need to be brought up here. Type is di-
vided into two broad classifications, serif and sans
serif, and most type you choose in the type panel will
be one or the other. Serif type is distinguished by the
small little extra ‘flags’, or serifs, on the ends of most
of the letters. The most common (not the best!) serif
type style is Times.
58 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
the letters somewhat). The header type has even
more positive tracking applied as this makes it look
more fluid.
Paragraph Options
The paragraph options in the property panel is most
useful with area text (although you should see what
it does using it with point type). With a text box or
a paragraph(s) selected, change the justification of
your paragraphs by clicking on one of the first four
boxes in the options. Don't use the last three boxes—
these are for very special uses.
The first box (button) will make your text left justi-
fied or aligned only on the left. This is the most com-
mon way to format text, and the main one used in for-
matting this book. The second box centers your type.
This makes the text very difficult to read, but every
once in a while it is suitable for short bits of text like
song lyrics. The third box is right justified. This is also The left side-bars
an unusual way of formatting text, but can be used in this book are
for short pieces of text in specific situations (like the right justified.
sidebars of this book). The fourth box fully justifies This is also called
the text (also called right justified or just ‘justified’). ragged left.
This is also a very common way to format text. The
other paragraph formatting options change the way
the last line of a paragraph appears in justified text
and are very rarely used.
Type on a Path
There are other tools associated with the type tool.
The second tool down is the type on a path tool. It
does what the name implies.
60 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
the type using the type (or type on path) tool and
clicking on the letters. This is a good point to review
those kerning and tracking options, especially if you
have text on the inside of a curve.
Now look around the circle for a blue line near the be-
ginning of your word. It looks like a long blue line with
a small box. Move your selection tool cursor over
this line until you see your cursor showing a small
arrow pointing to the right. Click and drag. This will
also move your type, but what you are actually doing
is expanding and contracting the area in which your
type fits. If you move it too far to the right you will see
that a small red box shows up telling you that there is
more type on that line than is visible.
62 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
Outlines from Type
You have probably noticed that we have gone far be-
yond the capabilities of a word processing program
in the type controls we have. In Illustrator you have
infinite control. Select a text area box (or point text)
with one word in it. Do not select the type, but the
box containing it! Now go to Type > Create Outlines.
Compound Paths
Make a lower-case ‘a’ and convert it to an outline.
Now zoom in to where it fills most of your window.
Click on it with the direct selection tool and you will
notice that there are two shapes—the clear part in-
side the letter and the black parts of the letter. But
notice there no way to select them as separate ob-
jects or ungroup them. When two shapes are com-
bined into one like this it is called a compound path.
This may be easier to see by making a color-filled
rectangle and placing it behind the letter.
Pathfinder Tools
In modifying shapes or letters that have been made
into shapes (outlined), it is sometimes difficult or at
least awkward to make certain shapes. This is where
the pathfinder options come in.
64 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
With both circles selected, go to the properties pan-
el and click on the far left option in the pathfind-
er options (unite) in the shape modes. The circles
will combine into one shape. Undo this, then go to
the second box (minus) in the pathfinder panel. The
shape that is laying over the other shape will act as
a cookie-cutter, cutting out the overlapping area to
make a crescent shape. You will see that is a much
easier way to make a crescent than with the pen tool
alone. And you can still edit the points exactly as if Many designers
you had made it with the pen tool. start with a few
basic shapes to
It will help when experimenting with the pathfinder make complex
tools to use a different color for the fill of each shape. shapes.
That way you can see which shape is overlapping the
other shape. Now use the other two options in the
shape modes box. The third option (intersect) will
only make a shape from the intersection of the two
shapes, and the fourth box (exclude) will do the op-
posite of that. This makes a group which must be un-
grouped (Object > Ungroup) to see the effect.
Align Panel
Often when you use the pathfinder tool (or when you
are doing many other things) you need to align things
perfectly. Make five or six squares or rectangles of
different sizes. Select them all, then select the vari-
ous different options in the align section of the prop-
erties panel to align their centers or different sides.
Pay attention to the icons while you are doing this to
see what they represent.
66 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
Now make five or six squares or rectangles the same
size (by copying with the option key or another meth-
od). Put them in a loose vertical row, then align them
with the centering option.
68 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
Chapter 4 Review
Two Ways to Make Type
dragging a box and typing to make area type
clicking and typing for point type
modifying type with bounding box
Character Options
serif and sans serif type styles
variations of a type style (bold, italics etc)
fonts as a computer resource
type size and leading, kerning and tracking
Paragraph Options
left justified, centered, right justified
fully justified text, hyphenation
Type on a Path
making type on a path
moving center point, end points
Compound Paths
making and releasing compound paths
Pathfinder Tools
using the pathfinder options
making compound paths with pathfinder
Align Panel
aligning and distributing multiple objects
managing artboards
70 C H A P T E R 4 : IL LU ST RATOR T Y P E
Chapter 4 Sample Quiz
Top
Type the word "Top" and kern the letters. Change text
color to grey.
Make a wavy path with the pen tool and put some
type on it. Kern the worst letter spacing in that type.
Pixels
In your web browser, find an image (not a thumbnail
image) that you like. Click and hold on it, then drag it Not all images
to the desktop. Now drag the icon for that image (the allow dragging
image file) over the Photoshop icon to open it in Pho- to copy. If it
toshop. You could also open it in Photoshop by con- doesn't work, try
trol-clicking the file and choosing Photoshop. another website.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 73
then it is an optical illusion called an adjacency ef-
fect). These pixels are the basic building blocks for an
image, and all bitmap images are composed entirely
of these and nothing else.
74 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
The new
document box
For your new image, specify an image of 600 pixels by Although not
600 pixels. This is plenty of pixels for now. The num- important, it is
ber in the resolution box does not matter at all for interesting to
now. For color mode, choose RGB Color. This stands note that a 600
for Red, Green, and Blue, and these are the colors that x 600 image
Photoshop likes best—more about this later. Also has 360,000
choose 8 bit. Bits determine how many colors each pixels. That is a
pixel color could be chosen from. Images with more lot of those little
than 8 bits have more color information possible for squares of color.
each pixel, but we wouldn’t see it. Let’s start with a
document filled with white pixels (it has to be filled
with some color of pixels), so set the background Feel free to take
contents to white. a break from this
book to experiment
When you click Create you will get a window with a with the tutorials
white square. This is called the canvas. In Photoshop, in Help Menu
there is no pasteboard—the canvas is full of pixels we although these
can change, the area surrounding it is... well, just the will be more
area surrounding it and has no functionality. helpful later.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 75
Brush Tool & Options
Let’s treat Photoshop as a painting program for a lit-
tle while. Choose the brush tool that is about a third
of the way down in the tool panel (make sure you
have the brush shown at left). Now look at the op-
tions panel, which is the horizontal ribbon over the
top of the window. Like Illustrator's properties pan-
el, this top ribbon changes according to the tool you
have chosen.
The options
panel changes
according to which
tool is selected.
76 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
Color Selection
Change the color of your brush by going to the col-
or panel (Window > Color if it is not showing). Make
sure you select the foreground color by clicking on
the top left square in the panel. Make a few more
lines with different colors. You can also change the
color by clicking on the color chip near the bottom of
the tool panel.
Selections
In Illustrator we had objects to select, but as we have
seen, Photoshop has no objects. So, obviously select-
ing is quite a bit different. Choose the rectangular
marquee tool and drag a box with it within your paint-
ing of lines. You should see a rectangle of ‘marching
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 77
ants’. Within that box the pixels are selected, outside
they are not. With the zoom tool magnify the view on
one of these borders to see how the selection lies be-
tween pixels, then double-click on the magnify tool
itself to bring the view back to 100%.
History Panel
Pushing ‘command-z’ (or Edit > Undo) undoes the
last action you did, and additionally holding down
the shift key redoes the action (it also does this in Il-
lustrator). Photoshop has a history panel (Window >
History). Experiment with it. The camera icon at the
bottom of the panel is very handy, allowing you save
multiple versions of your progress that you can go
back to or compare with each other.
78 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
image and how much memory Photoshop has avail-
able. If you are working on an image that has many
pixels (many more than 600x600) then the program
can start slowing down significantly (students some-
times make images with a gazillion pixels in them by
mistake).
Layers
In Illustrator we saw how making an object over an-
other object made a ‘stacking order’ where you could
bring things forward or back. In Photoshop anything
you make actually changes the pixels, and so obliter-
ates anything under it. You can keep the pixels under
the new pixels by using the layers panel.
Button to make
a new layer
(arrow) and new
layer (selected)
with transparent
content.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 79
layer). In the layer panel this new layer will show up
with a checkerboard, which is Photoshop’s way of
telling you it is transparent.
The bottom Make new layers and draw on them. Draw on each
‘layer’, called layer by clicking the layer you want to draw on by
the background, choosing it in the layer panel. Whatever layer in the
cannot be moved. layers panel that is highlighted is the layer you are
modifying.
80 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
Getting Images
Up to this point we have been making things from
scratch in Photoshop. Although some people make a
living doing this, it is much more common to use the
application to edit photographs.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 81
Assuming you have an image which is just right,
let’s look at a few things. Just like in Illustrator, you
can zoom in or out of your image by holding down
the space and command (or option) keys (assuming
Siri is off). If you are zoomed in, you can hold down
the space bar to drag around the view. Zoom in close
enough to look at the individual pixels that make up
the image. Zoom back out to see how those individu-
al pixels make the illusion of continuous tones.
The tool with which we can best see how this works
is the magic wand tool (associated with the object
selection tool). If the tolerance (in option panel) is
set to 1, this tool will only select the color (and tone)
where you click. But in a photograph, one color usu-
ally doesn’t go very far (zoom up close to what ap-
82 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
pears to be one color and you will see that the pixels
are usually composed of several colors).
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 83
the brush tool and paint over a selection and you will
see this. Now change the (brush options) mode from
Normal to Color in the pull-down menu—the brush
will only change the color within the selection, not
the tonality (darkness). Remember to set the mode
back to ‘normal’ when you are done. Copy your selec-
tion using the move tool and holding down the option
key while you drag it to see how that works. When
you are finished with your selection, go to Select >
Deselect.
84 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
The object selection tool is the most automatic of the
selection tools. Just drag a box completely around an
object and it will puzzle out what you want to select.
And sometimes it is correct. Notice the other options
in the options panel, such as making a lasso instead
of a rectangle. You can also switch to another selec-
tion tool such as the quick selection tool to refine
your selection.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 85
make sure we do not have a selection by going to Se-
lect > Deselect (you will probably want to learn the
key command for this—in the menu, remember?).
Once you set the destination with that first click, the
If you would like source and the destination are locked together until
the same source you set another source. Experiment with this. If you
with each click have two images open (or more than one layer in one
in different areas image) in Photoshop you can actually set your source
you can uncheck at one image or layer and your destination at another.
Aligned in the The clone stamp tool is a very good way to not only
options panel. put another eye on your friends’ foreheads, but also
to clean up parts of images, such as wires in the sky,
trash on the grass or ex-girlfriend in the photo. There
are some ethical considerations relating to Photo-
shop.
Image Adjustments
Perhaps the most basic and commonly used Photo-
shop techniques are adjusting the brightness, con-
trast, and color of images. With any image you work
86 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
on you should at least consider the possibilities of
modifying these.
There are
256 tones
(brightnesses) to
an image. Each
is numbered 0
through 255.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 87
look. Drag the right slider to make the light areas
lighter, and drag the left slider to make the dark areas
darker. Generally you first put the triangles near the
bottom of the mountains. After you do this, drag the
Gamma can be middle slider (called the gamma) back and forth until
described as the image looks good (you may have to go back and
how heavy an tweak the other sliders after you do this). In all Pho-
image looks. toshop requester boxes click Preview so that you can
see the results as you adjust.
88 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
will appear if saved and viewed in almost any other Computers do
application destined for the computer screen, includ- have differing
ing web browsers, emails, and presentations. resolutions, which
complicates this
To adjust this image size for screen viewing, go to Im- somewhat.
age > Image Size. For screen viewing we are only con-
cerned with the pixel dimensions—it does not matter
at all what the inch or other size is, since this refers
only to printed documents or saving for inclusion into
other applications (such as Illustrator).
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 89
Now change either the width or the height of the pix-
el dimensions. If your resulting image is too large at
100%, undo your image size and enter a smaller num-
ber. You have to get used to pixels as a measurement.
Screens have different sizes and resolutions, so inch-
es or any other measurement units really don’t apply
when talking about screens. A standard small screen
is 1024 pixels wide by 768 pixels high.
Saving an Image
When you save an image you opened from some-
where else, go to Image > Save As... You should save
your image in one of two formats: Photoshop or JPEG
(in the format box choose the shortest name of either
option).
90 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
If you want to send your image to someone else, then
JPEG is probably the best option. These are small
files that send quickly, and they can be opened in When you save
any application that accepts images, including email, a JPEG you can
presentation, and web applications. The downside is choose quality
that JPEG compresses the information in the image, and large file size
so you lose some quality, and you also lose any layers or visa-versa.
you may have.
The PNG format
Also, when naming an image, keep the file format suf- is also very useful
fix that Photoshop adds (.jpg or .psd). Changing this for many things.
suffix or taking it off can sometimes lead to problems.
Transform
One last technique will go a long way in helping you
play with Photoshop to learn more. Either make a se-
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 91
lection on an image or select the whole image, then
go to Edit > Free Transform.
92 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
Panels
In Illustrator we used the properties panel for every-
thing. In Photoshop you may have noticed that the
properties panel is mostly only good for taking up
screen space, and you need other panels. Bringing up
dedicated panels in Illustrator will also become im-
portant, so now is a good time to deal with panels.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 93
ment with some things we have not gone over. One
of the problems with doing this is that you may get
yourself into a blind alley until you know more. On
this and the next page is a list of things to look at if
you are stuck in the program and nothing seems to
work right. You may want to bookmark these pages,
as they are the most common botherations.
Photoshop Trouble?
1. What is the magnification (at the top of window)?
If your magnification is something less than 20%
when the image fills your screen you may have to go
into Image > Image Size to reduce the number of pix-
els.
94 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
5. Do you have a minuscule or huge brush (brush
panel or options bar)? Strange things will seem to
happen if your brush is very big. It can easily surpass
your canvas size!
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 95
Chapter 5 Review
Pixels
concept of pixels (each one color, one color only)
pixels as building blocks of an image
New Document
opening new image; pixel size, color mode
no page, but canvas
Selections
selecting part of an image with rectangle or oval
moving and copying selections
History Panel
using the history panel to step back, memory issues
Layers
using layers to draw one image over another
making new layer
moving layer order, deleting layer, flattening
Getting Images
getting images from various sources
opening images in Photoshop
using zoom and grabber tools, keyboard shortcuts
96 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
More Selection Tools
quick selection, object selection tools
lasso and magnetic lasso tools
crop tool
Image Adjustments
histogram as a map of your image
changing light, dark, and medium tones
using color balance to change color of an image
Saving an Image
Photoshop and JPEG file formats
Transform
Rotating and scaling selections
Panels
Managing panels in Adobe applications
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 97
Chapter 5 Quiz
Find an interesting image which is over 500 pixels
wide from the web (if you do a Google search, make
sure you don’t grab the thumbnail, but instead the
larger image you see after clicking the thumbnail).
98 C H A P T E R 5: P H OTOS H OP BAS I C S
Chapter 5 Practice
Find some images to work with, either from your own
camera or on the web. A good website for images is:
theatlantic.com/photo. The image sets there are very
high quality, and the site is well-curated.
C H AP T E R 5: PHOTOS HOP BA S IC S 99
6 Photoshop Layers
Also notice that any colors you may have had in the
tool panel’s color chips (or in the color panel) have
now turned to black and white. With the brush tool
102 C H A P TE R 6: P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
(be careful to select the icon with just the paint brush)
paint out some of the selection, then exchange colors
(little double arrow or the ‘x’ key—remember?) and
paint in some of the selection. When you are finished,
click again on the quick mask tool to show the selec-
tion in marching ants again. You will see your painting
changed the selection. With quick mask you can eas-
ily modify a selection to get it just right. You will defi-
nitely want to modify your selections with the view at
least at 100% or usually even greater.
A selection at
the bottom of the
channels panel.
An RGB color
image is actually
made up of 3
black & white
images. These are
called channels.
1 04 C H A P T E R 6 : P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
The resulting box is where you make a stroke around
your rectangle. You have to experiment with how
many pixels translates to what width of stroke—
it depends on how many pixels your image is. The
more pixels there are in your image the more width
you will need for your stroke. Remember that the
command + z keys undo the last thing you did.
Canvas Size
You have probably noticed that if you try to paint or
copy a selection to anywhere outside the borders
of your image nothing happens. To extend the area
where you can work, otherwise known as your can-
vas, go to Image > Canvas Size and change the di-
mensions of your canvas either in pixels or percent-
age. You can also specify where that space is added
to your present image with the buttons below the
You can also use size. The canvas extension color is what color the
the crop tool added pixels will be.
to extend the
canvas size. More Layers
Now that you have a better understanding of Photo-
shop, it is a good time to revisit layers. Open two im-
ages in Photoshop. Now with one of these images, se-
lect everything (Select > All) and copy the selection
(Edit > Copy). Activate the other image by clicking
on its tab the top of the image, and go to Edit > Paste.
You will now have two layers with each image on a
separate layer.
1 06 C H A P T E R 6 : P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
contained in layer 0 should now be visible over the
image contained in layer 1.
More options for While you have an image with two layers, do some-
layers are available thing else. Make a selection on your top layer and
by double-clicking press the delete key. When you didn’t have layers the
a layer icon in the delete key filled the selection with the background
layers panel. color. Now that you have a layer it replaces the selec-
tion with transparent pixels. Hide the bottom layer by
clicking the eye next to it in the layers panel. You will
see that transparent pixels are indicated by a check-
erboard pattern. This is the way Photoshop indicates
transparent pixels. Try painting on the top layer with
the eraser tool to make the pixels transparent. Paint
with the options for the eraser tool set to 50% opacity
(remember where to find them at the top of the win-
dow?). Pixels can have any degree of transparency.
Layer Mask
There is a lot you can do with combining layers in
Photoshop. Deleting or erasing portions of the top
layer using selections or the eraser tool are two ways
of doing it, but there is a far better way, which is by
using a layer mask.
1 08 C H A P T E R 6 : P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
Like before, copy one image on top of another to
make two layers (we probably want to start fresh
here). With your top layer selected in the layers pan-
el, click on the add layer mask icon (it looks like the
quick-mask icon) at the bottom of the panel.
What this does is make a mask (much like a quick- Remember you can
mask) associated with that layer. Make sure the mask pause your mouse
is selected by clicking on it in the layers panel (it will over a button to
have brackets on the corners if it is—see the illustra- see what it does.
tion below), and paint with the paint brush tool. You
will notice that you can only use black, grey, or white
(again like the quickmask). Change the foreground
color to black with the exchange arrows and paint on
the image. You will see that this ‘erases’ the top layer
the same way that painting with the eraser tool did.
Layer mask on
layer 1 showing
brackets on
corners of the
thumbnail
meaning that the
mask, not the
image, is selected.
Type Tool
As we have seen, with the upper tools in the tool
panel we can select and edit. The lower (not lowest)
group of tools are vector tools, and work much the
same as they do in Illustrator. But, as we have also
seen, Photoshop is not a vector application, so work-
ing with these tools is limited and a bit awkward in
comparison to Illustrator. At least for now.
The type tool is one tool you might find useful since it
is sometimes easier to put type in an image in Photo-
shop, although it is usually better to add type in Illus-
trator. Type in Photoshop will only be as sharp as the
image, and type looks fuzzy or pixelated at far higher
resolutions than photographs.
110 C H A P T E R 6 : P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
With an image open in Photoshop, choose the type
tool and look at the options panel. Here you can
change the size of the type (pixels is usually the unit
you want to use here), the color of the type, and oth-
er things. You can also open the character and para-
graph panels here to have more options. By clicking
and typing or by dragging a box and typing, make a
word or two, and you will notice that a new type layer
is created in the layers panel.
112 C H A P T E R 6 : P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
Chapter 6 Review
The View & Filters
application frame and document tabs
screen modes, tab to get rid of panels
sharpen pass(es) and unsharp mask
filters & filter gallery
Canvas Size
extending the canvas in different directions
More Layers
two images on two layers
making background a layer
free transform
scaling, rotating (etc.) selections or layers
eraser tool and delete key to make transparent
Layer Mask
making and editing layer masks
selecting either layer mask or layer image
applying layer mask
Type Tool
making and editing type in Photoshop
rasterizing type
sadness
surprise
ugly
extreme
wtf
red
tangled
alien
stupid
drastic measures
black & white
114 C H A P T E R 6 : P H OTOS H OP L AY E RS
7 Images to Illustrator
Remember: sizing
for screen, check
resample, sizing
for print or another
application,
uncheck it.
If the units in the width and height boxes are not inch-
es, change them to inches (or other units which are
familiar to you). With screen images we were not
concerned with inches, but now that we want some-
thing we can print we are.
116 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
In the resolution box, enter 200 pixels per inch. This
is the way you tell Photoshop to spread out its pix-
els so that there will be 200 of them for every inch
of print (pixels per inch, or PPI). In general 200 is a The more pixels
good number to use, since there are not many images there are, the
where you need more pixels per inch to have the pix- smaller they will
els disappear. be. Think about it.
The width and the height will change when you enter
200 in the resolution box. Consider these the maxi-
mum height or width of your image. In the example Payne's Law states
above, that will make our image at most 3 inches in that the image
height (and 4.5 in width). If we want to have our im- you want from the
age print larger we have to go to the hardware store web will not have
and buy some more pixels. Actually, you can't buy enough pixels
pixels, so instead we have to find an image with more for its intended
pixels if we want the image to print well. print size.
If you are totally Now look at your own image at 200 pixels per inch.
lost at this point, Do the dimensions Photoshop’s calculations come up
help in the form with make sense to you? What we are doing here is
of steps to take not brushing up on your math skills, but attempting to
is on the way. understand this pixels and inches thing. For the pur-
But you will be poses of this book 1/200 of an inch is the size at which
better served pixels disappear to the naked eye, therefore the di-
if you reread mensions of your image at this resolution is the maxi-
and understand mum size it should be in Illustrator. If you made your
image sizing. image larger, the pixels would then be too big, and the
viewer would see them.
118 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
mension is too small, then resize your image using
this dimension. Remember that there is no way to
fit a square image so that it fills up a long rectangle
without stretching (distorting) the image.
Image with not
enough pixels
(left) and with
enough pixels
(right).
However you size If you do somewhat understand image sizing you can
images, make also enter your width, height, and resolution while
sure the size of using the crop tool. The options panel has places to
the image on the enter the information (putting 'in' after the size tells
screen doesn't Photoshop you mean inches). This might seem like a
get bigger after more direct way of sizing images, but it has the dis-
you enter the advantage of not having a way to 'lock' the resolution,
information. so chances are good that a beginner like you will add
pixels inadvertently and end up with pixels as big as
your fist.
1 20 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
Image Sizing Steps
1 22 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
Image Sizing Steps (continued)
You may have found that there are other ways of get-
ting images into Illustrator, such as by dragging, past-
ing, and even opening them. Resist the temptation
Files dragged and don’t use these ways for any file you care about.
into Illustrator They are for special uses only, and can bloat the file
can retain links, size of your Illustrator document, make the applica-
but doing it this tion unstable, and generally make life difficult. It is
way increases very common for students to lose links to their im-
the likelihood ages because of the ways they put them in Illustrator
of errors. and because they do not keep images where Illustra-
tor can find them.
1 24 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
Your photograph probably does not look as good in
Illustrator as it did in Photoshop. Remember that Il-
lustrator is not a pixel-based application—it is just
showing you a preview of what the image generally
looks like. When you print your document or save it
as a PDF, Illustrator will retrieve the original image
files and use them to make high-quality renderings of
your images.
A properly
linked image.
There is a small You should now see your image with changes in Illus-
disclosure triangle trator. This is the way of editing images once they are
at the lower left in Illustrator. The link panel will also tell you where
of the links panel your photographs are located, if they are linked cor-
that allows you rectly, and allow you to change the links. If you see
to reveal more any alert symbols in the links panel you should find
information. out what Illustrator is trying to tell you.
Warning icons
meaning modified
link, no link, and
missing link. Pay
attention to these!
You should not
have any of them.
1 26 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
it means that the image is not linked (usually it has
been pasted), and the stop sign means that the link is
lost. For these last two problems go to the relink box
at the bottom of the panel. If Illustrator cannot find
the image it is linking to, your prints and PDFs can
only use the preview image, which is usually of very
low quality.
C H AP T E R 7: I M AG ES TO ILLUSTR ATOR 1 27
Clipping Masks
A clipping mask is an Illustrator shape that contains
an image. Start with an Illustrator document contain-
ing a placed image. Now draw an oval over part of
that image. The fill and stroke setting do not matter.
Now select both the oval and the image (by shift-
clicking or dragging a box with the selection tool). Go
The shape you are to Object > Clipping Mask > Make. You should see
placing an image that your image is now only inside your shape and
into needs to be any fill or stroke the shape might have had is gone.
over (bring to You are using the shape as a clipping mask for your
front) the image. image.
1 28 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
Make the type very bold and add a stroke to it after
you have made a clipping mask. Remember that the
object you are making the clipping mask with should
be arranged over the image and both need to be se-
lected to make the mask.
Placing in Illustrator
saving all elements in the same folder
placing (and linking) image files in Illustrator
image in Illustrator is just a preview!
Link Panel
editing Photoshop files outside Illustrator
updating, re-linking, finding linked files
link warnings
Clipping Masks
making and editing clipping masks
using selection tool and direct selection tool
using type as a clipping mask
cropping an image
1 30 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
Chapter 7 Quiz
C H AP T E R 7: I M AG ES TO ILLUSTR ATOR 13 1
Chapter 7 Practice
Look at movie posters and pick out a few that you like.
1 32 C H A P T E R 7: IM AG E S TO I L LU ST RATOR
8 InDesign
The Workspace
Open InDesign, make a new document, and take a look
around. Make some things. If you learned Illustrator
well, you should notice that the application is not a
lot different. The tools are much the same, the panels
are similar, and ways of doing things (like keyboard
modifiers) are so much like Illustrator that you might
not even notice you are in a different application. This
is why there is only one chapter in this book devoted
to InDesign—you have already learned much about
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 13 3
the program while learning Illustrator. This book
could have just as easily covered InDesign first and
then covered Illustrator this same way.
A New Document
While you create a new document in InDesign,
change the document's measurement units from pi-
cas to inches. Picas (and associated points) are actu-
ally a much better way to measure spacing in docu-
ments, but they are unfamiliar to most readers here,
so for the time being inches are better.
Designers
usually use the
measurement
system of picas
and points in
layout to avoid
problems with
measurements
in inches and
fractions. A pica
is 12 points,
and there are 6
picas (72 points) You should notice that there are some new things in
to an inch. the menu and in the requester box that comes up.
Most obvious is the option for setting the number
of pages. Since we are just learning some things and
1 34 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
since we can always add pages later, you should leave
this set to 1.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 13 5
hopefully wouldn’t leave any of it in your final design
by mistake.
Text Wrap
Images placed in InDesign behave very much the
same as in Illustrator with some important differenc-
es. To see these, first save your document and save
a couple of sized images in the same folder. Then go
to File > Place. When you place your image, you do
not get the option to link your image (they are by de-
fault), but you do get other options. Deselect these.
After you click ‘okay’ you will get an image cursor you
can use to specify where you want to place the im-
age. Make sure you do not click within your text box.
If you did, your image would be in-line with the text,
meaning InDesign would treat it the same as a word
in your text. This is only desirable if your document
will become something like a web page or an e-book.
After you place your image, you might notice that the
image quality is very bad. As in Illustrator, InDesign is
only giving you a preview for placement. If you would
like a somewhat higher quality for your preview, go to
View > Display Performance > High Quality Display.
You can set this as the default in InDesign’s prefer-
ences.
You will notice that your image floats over your text
as you drag it around. Generally, we don’t want this,
as we want the text to wrap around the image. In the
Text Wrap section of the properties panel (with your
image selected), specify the second option, and click
1 36 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
on the ellipsis to enter an offset of about a tenth of an
inch in each of the boxes below (if the lock icon is on
then one number will populate all the boxes).
This specifies how close the text will come to the im-
age. If the lock button in the middle is selected, all
the boxes will have the same value. You should notice Always select
that there is a secondary box now around your image the object you
that shows you how close to your image InDesign will want the text to
allow the type. wrap around, not
the text itself!
Now drag your image over your type box—the type
will avoid the image. Also notice that words don’t just
magically flow perfectly around your image. You will
have to adjust the placement of your image to get the Right about now
right space on the top and bottom of the image, and if you should be
your type has too small a space on the left or the right realizing that
it will have very awkward spacing. Beginners often ig- inches are not
nore the fact that type is not like water—it will only good for small
flow in particular ways. measurements.
Bring out the rulers
The Image Frame with command-r,
If you move the corners of your image you will see then control-click
that instead of changing the size of your image it will and hold where
crop your image. Given that InDesign is often used for the rulers intersect
production work (newspapers, magazines, books), it to change units. Or
makes sense that the application treats the image in go to the InDesign
two parts—the frame and the image. preferences.
You can change the size of your frame, and then fit
the image (content) within in most directly by going
to Object > Fitting, and select the option that best
suites your needs. Never fit content to frame (see il-
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 1 37
lustration) as this might very well stretch your im-
age—instead use the fit content proportionally menu
item.
You can also adjust your image size very much the
Always hold the same way you adjusted it in Illustrator’s clipping path
shift key when by using the selection tool to adjust the frame and
sizing and never the direct selection tool (or click the circle in center
size bigger! These of the image) to adjust the size of the image. Or, if
controls should you hold the command key before you start to drag a
only be used to corner of the frame with the selection tool, both the
‘tweak’ the size image and the frame will size together.
of an image or
to crop an image Multiple and Master Pages
for your layout. Multiple pages are handled in the pages panel (Win-
dow > Pages). Using an open page with a block of text
on it, go to the pages panel. In the panel menu (top
right), add some pages (Insert Pages...) to your docu-
ment. You can go to your new pages by either dou-
ble-clicking on their icon in the pages panel or scroll-
ing in your document.
1 38 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Pages panel (and
its menu) with
master pages in
top group and
document pages
in lower group.
need. To see how they work, double-click on the A-
Master page icon near the top of the panel and draw
a few things on the page that appears in your window.
Also drag out a guide or two (remember? —View >
Show Rulers, then drag the guides from them).
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 13 9
Threading Text Frames
Generally you are going to want your text to flow
from one page to the next and from one column to
another. Start with at least two pages and a block
of text on your first page. Now resize the text frame
on the first page small enough so that not all of the
text is visible. You will see a small red plus symbol on
the bottom right of your text box. This indicates that
there is overset text—more text than the frame will
accommodate.
1 40 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Paragraph Styles
Each of the applications you are learning have had es-
sential techniques which are difficult for many stu-
dents to get their head around. In Illustrator it is mak-
ing and editing paths. In Photoshop it is image sizing.
In InDesign it is paragraph styles.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 141
Let’s define the whole block of text as body copy.
First, select all of your text or the text frame itself,
then click the new icon next to the trash icon at the
bottom of the Paragraph Styles panel (make sure
you opened the Paragraph Styles panel in Window >
Styles, not the paragraph panel in Window > Type.
Double-click on the name Paragraph Style 1, and in the
resulting box name the style Body Copy.
A new paragraph
style will show
up like this.
1 42 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
graph styles panel, but it has a small plus symbol next Yes, I know. Just
to the name. This means that it is still the body copy keep re-reading
style, but you have added some extra things (size and and trying it
bold) to it. from the start
of this section.
Again click on the icon at the bottom of the panel to
make a new paragraph style, and double-click on the
Paragraph Style 1 it produces in the panel. Rename
this style headers and click okay. Now either select
another header (or just put the cursor in the para-
graph), and click Headers in the paragraph styles pan-
el. Do the same thing to your other headers to also
define them as headers.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 143
making a word italic (for instance). This overrides
the style. That word would now show in the para-
graph styles panel with a plus after the name of the
style. As we saw before, to reset it back to the style,
click on the second icon on the bottom of the panel.
For the book you are now reading, there are para-
graph styles for many things, such as body copy,
chapter headers, small headers, chapter intros, cap-
tion text, etcetera. The red text that shows up when
new terms are introduced are governed by a charac-
ter style (one of only two character styles used). Any
of these things can be changed throughout all of the
pages in the entire book with just a couple of clicks.
1 44 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Character Panel
While Illustrator excels at design flexibility, InDesign
excels at design consistency, both in typography and
layout. You probably noticed how much control you
have by the shear number of options in paragraph
styles. Without going into too much detail, here are
some other controls you have, most of which are also
available in Illustrator. For this discussion we are go-
ing to use the dedicated Character Panel (Window >
Type & Tables > Character) instead of the type con-
trols in the Property Panel.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 145
by default InDesign combines some letter combina-
tions into ligatures. These make the copy (text) much
cleaner—see how they look with ligatures turned off.
Ligatures have been standard in publishing for a long
time.
1 46 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Type & Tables > Paragraph). Enter a number of 2 or
3 (lines) in the drop cap box in the lower left of the
panel. The first word in each paragraph will now start
with a drop cap, or larger version of the letter. You
would probably only want this in the first paragraph,
so you would just select (or put your cursor in) that
paragraph.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 147
Exporting & Printing
Before you finish your InDesign document there are
two things which are crucial. The first is (of course)
to check your spelling. Go to Edit > Spelling. All of the
Adobe Design programs have spell checkers, but In-
Design (and Illustrator) also has the option to check
spelling as you type (dynamic spelling).
1 48 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
that contained everything that is needed for printing,
including all images, all fonts, and any instructions
you would like to add. But since you are just using
this box to check your document you can click Cancel.
You can also check for errors using the small green or
red icon at the bottom of your document frame near
the page number you are on. The Preflight pull-down
menu there does exactly what package does without
the option to actually package the document.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 149
To see the file size Choose High Quality Print if it will be printed. The dif-
of a document in ference in file size between these two can be very
the Macintosh dramatic if your document includes placed images.
Finder, highlight
the file icon and go Printing your document is very much the same as in
to File > Get Info. Illustrator, but since InDesign is usually dealing with
multiple pages, there are more options in the way
spreads (two pages next to each other) and even/
odd pages are printed. Make sure you understand
warning boxes that may pop up as you go to print or
export.
150 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Chapter 8 Review
The Workspace
most things very much like Illustrator
A New Document
column and margin guides, facing pages
placeholder text
Text Wrap
text wrap (select object to be wrapped around)
offset and type flow considerations
Paragraph styles
paragraphs defined with the return key
defining & changing paragraph styles
clearing override styles
character styles
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 151
Character Panel
metric (built-in) and optical kerning
ligatures and character menu
Open Type options
glyphs panel
Paragraph Panel
drop caps and hyphenation
152 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Chapter 8 Quiz
text wrap on all sides of the rectangle. wrap. This is text wrap.
This is text wrap. This
is text wrap. This is text
wrap. This is text wrap.
This is text wrap. This is
text wrap.
This is Header 1
Make two paragraphs of text with headers for each.
And this is the body
Use paragraph styles to define both headers the same copy for it. And this is
style and both blocks of body copy another style. the body copy for it.
This is Header 2
And this is the body
copy for it and this is
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 153
Chapter 8 Practice
The text on the next five pages needs designing to
communicate effectively! Download this book (loca-
tion in the Preface), and select all of the text start-
ing on the next page, copy it, then and paste it into
InDesign. Arrange it to make sense graphically (in
other words, design it). Use as many letter-size pages
as necessary, and make sure you turn off Facing Pages.
Use the things noted in the text to help you figure
out your layout, type choices, etcetera. You will want
to read the text after you start designing it so that it
is easier for you to read! Pay particular attention to
including all of the following:
Note: Some PDF readers will split the text at each line
with a return. If this happens you will have to get the text
elsewhere or remove the hard returns.
154 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Get your type under control, dang it!
InDesign Techniques
Paragraph Styles If your PDF reader
Defining and using styles is important
for two main reasons. First, it makes does put a line
it very easy to make changes. For in- break after each
stance, instead of going through all line when you copy
your headers and changing the point the text you could
size a half-point, you can just make
always experiment
one change to see how it looks through-
out your document. Second, styles pro- with the Find/
mot consistency. You can’t have that Change options
mistake where you left one line a in the Edit menu.
quarter-point larger than the rest of The line breaks
your text. For type changes within the
are actually pretty
paragraph (like italics), styles are
easily over-ridden. easy to remove.
Columns & text threading
Chances are good that you will want
more than one column on a page (see
Length of text lines). In InDesign you
should thread the text frames together
across colums and across pages.
Type aesthetics
The point
The point of typography, and also pret-
ty much all of design, is to comuni-
cate clearly and beautifully. We want
to attract the reader and have them
think about what is said, not about
the design. The best design is invis-
ible to the reader.
Learn from the experts
When you are doing any project that
requires text you can easily learn how
it is done with instruction by some of
the world’s best designers. Just pick
up a magazine or a book. Look closely.
What is the type choice, point size,
leading? How are the headers done, how
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 155
is the right margin handled? Etcetera.
Body Copy (extended reading type like
the paragraph below)
Break the typewriter
Typewriters haven’t been around for a
while, but many people still cling to
their limitations. Don’t underline —
instead use italic or bold. Don’t put
two spaces after a sentence — comput-
ers can figure out the correct space
to put after a period with one space.
Use the correct dash: Hyphens con-
nect words that make up one word or
spread a word across lines. En dashes
(command+hyphen keys) connect numbers
or words like in dates or addresses.
Em dashes (command+shift+hyphen keys)
connect thoughts in a sentence. More
info on Wikipedia...
Body copy text choices
Serifs fonts are easier to read and
many are classic looking. Sans ser-
if can look cleaner, simpler and more
modern. The little tags on the end of
serif letters help the eye distinguish
one letter from another, which is im-
portant because when we read we read
patterns, not letters. There are ex-
ceptions to this, such as type on a on
a low-resolution screen and short bits
of big type (like headers). Type size
is also important, and unfortunately
can only be judged in a print (if that
is the final medium). Different type-
styles will look different sizes at the
same point size, but generaly point
sizes from 8 to 11 are good. Type that
is too large looks awkward and ama-
teurish, and type that is too small is
hard to read. And never use decorative
156 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
type for your text unless you don’t
want anyone to read it. Times and Hel-
vetica are bad choices if only because
they are over-used.
Alignment
Justified left and ragged right is the
best option, but if you want your page
more regimented, or if your columns are
close together, you might want to use
fully justified type (left and right).
Watch the spacing of your words when
you fully justify, and to help word
spacing you should probably have hy-
phenation turned on. Centered text and
ragged left text are really just for
special purposes. Save them for your
poetry.
Leading
How much leading to set is a person-
al thing, and it also depends on what
you need. Too little leading will make
your lines crowded and jumbled. Too
much leading will make your body of
text look unconnected with itself and
give the feeling of stripes. Start
with a leading 2 points larger than
your type size and print it out to see
if you need more (or less).
Length of text lines
A general rule of thumb is to keep
lines to 50-60 characters (letters and
spaces). Too long text lines makes it
hard for the reader to pick up the
next line as they are reading. If you
want to use longer lines, keep the
text down to only three or four lines
and do not fully justify it. Increas-
ing leading will also help. Very short
lines of text should never be fully
justified, since the word spacing will
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 157
suffer, even with hyphenation. There
are controls in InDesign with which
you can vary how words are spaced and
how they are hyphenated, but for now
just make sure you don’t have ‘rivers’
of white space running down your body
copy from poorly spaced words.
Paragraphs
Paragraphs are good. They group the
text into inviting chunks and help the
reader skim. Paragraphs can be sepa-
rated with a line return or by indent-
ing the beginning of each paragraph
after the first. The ideal indentation
is usually around the width of the let-
ter ‘M’ in your typestyle (that width
is called an ‘em’), but some designers
use a bit more.
Italic and Bold
Italic and bold versions of your type-
face are great ways of emphasizing
words or separating them from the rest
of the text. Get used to using them.
Color changes can also be used for the
same purpose, although that technique
is much less common.
Header & Title Text
Headers
Make sure your headers and titles play
nice with your body copy text. They
don’t have to be in the same typestyle
at all, and often times serifs and sans
serif styles are mixed between headers
and body copy. Whatever your choice of
header typestyle or size, make sure it
doesn’t speak too loud (usually too
bold or big) or too soft in comparison
to your body copy. All caps is fine in
headers. All caps is harder too read,
but headers are short.
158 C H A P T E R 8: IN D E S I G N
Fun with type
The point of typography is to communi-
cate, not show how many fonts you can
use or how ‘creative’ you are (ugg).
Use as few fonts as possible, and don’t
beat the user with decorative fonts.
Layout and what is said can communi-
cate something like ‘fun’ better than
Comic Sans. Decorative fonts work best
when they silently quietly communicate
a mood.
Kerning
Headers should always be scanned to
see if they need any letters kerned.
Body copy doesn’t generally need it at
all (whew), but if it is not good try
setting InDesign’s kerning to ‘opti-
cal’ or better yet, change your typ-
estyle to something with better ‘kern-
ing pairs’ built in.
There is much more to typography, but
this should get you started. A well
set page with a good layout is invit-
ing and beautiful. You have seen them,
but I am sure you haven’t noticed them.
That was the designer’s intent.
C HA PTER 8 : IN D ES IG N 1 59
9 Xd
C HA PTER 9 : Xd 161
Tutorial
While the tutorials in the other Adobe applications
The splash screen we have covered are bad at presenting a coordinated
Learn section path to learn from, the one in Xd is so good that it
includes videos saves a bunch of words here—instead you will work
that you may also through it. To get to the tutorial, open any size project
find helpful. from the splash screen, then go to Help > XD Tutorial.
Finer Points
The options in the right panel are contextual, mean-
ing they change according to what you have selected.
Basically, this is panel is the same as the properties
panel in Illustrator.
1 62 C H A P T E R 9 : Xd
You can combine links across pages formatted for
different devices—the pages (artboards) will simply At the time of this
show up in different proportions. Remember where writing, Adobe
the artboard tool is in the tool panel—when you se- is updating Xd
lect it you get a choice of sizes on the right. You can almost once per
delete an artboard simply by selecting it and hitting month. In many of
the delete key. these updates the
interface changes
A common strategy is to design pages for desktop and modifications
browsers and then another set of pages for mobile are made to other
devices. Copying and resizing between page sizes is things. So, don't
where those responsive resize options can save you be surprised if
some work. something isn't
exactly as it is
There is no provision for drop-down menus, but you explained here.
can simulate them by linking to an identical page
showing a drop-down open and assign links to the
options in the list. Similarly, use your imagination to
simulate other common web site features.
C HA PTER 9 : Xd 163
If you are sending your creations to a person who will
make web pages out of what you have done you could
instead send the specifications for your pages (such
as colors used, placement measurements, and imag-
es) using the Development option.
164 C H A P T E R 9 : Xd
mum viewport of around 1080 pixels wide. My sug-
gestion is to make a custom size at 1100 pixels wide
by 800 pixels tall. Make sure you fill in the numbers
before clicking on the icon.
Illustrator
You may prefer to do your designing in Illustrator in-
stead of Xd, either to give you more drawing features
or just because you are more familiar with it. Simply
open an Illustrator file by going to File > Open (not
import), and your Illustrator file will open with all art-
boards intact. From there, you can change page sizes,
add links, and publish a preview.
C HA PTER 9 : Xd 16 5
Chapter 9 Review
Tutorial
working through the tutorials multiple times
Page scroll and other points in tutorials
Finer Points
responsive design aids for different sizes of pages
designing for mobile or desktop
Prototyping Pages
publishing prototypes and sending link
Illustrator
opening Illustrator files in Xd
finishing the design in Xd
1 66 C H A P T E R 9 : Xd
Chapter 9 Practice
Make a short website for a fictional company for ei-
ther desktop or mobile versions. You should do plenty
of research for this, looking at how other websites do
their designs. You should continue to do research as
you work on this to double-check how your designs
measure up to professional designs. Here are some
questions to ask during this process:
C HA PTER 9 : Xd 167
10 The Right Tool
Do not fall into the trap of using one program over the
other because you ‘like it better’. That is as absurd as us-
ing the wrench as a hammer because you like wrenches
better. Each application has its own strengths.
InDesign
If you want to consider one application your ‘go to’
for every design, it should probably be InDesign. Ty-
pography is king in design—these little symbols that
1 70 C H A P T E R 1 0: TH E RI G H T TOOL
InDesign also lets you do simple illustrations, and
works very much like Illustrator in this regard. But be-
ware—complicated illustrations are not only difficult
in InDesign, but do not lend themselves well to modi-
fication, like scaling. InDesign is also not very fluid.
If you were to design a sign, for example, you would
quickly see that type in a text frame does not easily
lend itself to visual adjustments and tweaking.
Illustrator
Illustrator is flexible, and you should use it when you
need flexibility. It will handle any illustration with
ease. The illustrations can be easily modified, added
to, and subtracted from. You can produce anything
from a postcard to a billboard.
1 72 C H A P T E R 1 0: TH E RI G H T TOOL
Photoshop
The limits of Photoshop are pretty clear. Anything
without hard edges (like a photograph) is best done
with pixels, so that means Photoshop. Photographs,
paintings, drawings, image based patterns, etcetera.
Once you get into hard definite edges, such as are
present in type, Photoshop will quickly run you into
trouble.
All Together
There are two ways of producing designs with type
from these applications, and only two ways. The first
is to use InDesign or Xd, and place images and/or Il-
lustrator artwork into your document. This way you
can have areas of complex illustrations and photo-
graphs combined with areas of consistent type. For
example, this book.
174 C H A P T E R 1 0: TH E RI G H T TOOL
There are, however, dozens of very specialized ways
of using the applications that do involve some special
ways of doing things. For instance, in the last chap-
ters we will paste an Illustrator drawing into Photo-
shop. There are good reasons for doing these special
techniques, but until you know them, and know why
you are doing them, stick with one of the work-flows
on the following page that represent 99% of the de-
signs you see on the web or print.
176 C H A P T E R 1 0: TH E RI G H T TOOL
Chapter 10 Review
InDesign
when in doubt, use InDesign
best for typographic consistency
Illustrator
best for small amounts of type
retains visual flexibility
works well with illustrations
Photoshop
for continuous-tone images
Xd
for interactive design
All Together
InDesign with placed Illustrator and Photoshop files
Illustrator with placed Photoshop files
Design Work-flows
some suggestions on the right tool for the job
Document Mode
When you click Create New in Illustrator, tabs at the
top of the resulting window allow you to set the in-
tent of the document. The two choices you should
use are either Web if your final product will be seen
on a screen or Print if it will be printed out.
More PDF
PDFs files are incredibly useful and versatile. They
may contain only vectors and be of very small file
size. Or, like this book, they may contain many pag-
es and combinations of vectors and pixels-based im-
ages. They can have fonts embedded in them so that
the computer they are viewed on doesn’t have to have
the used fonts installed. They can even be interac-
tive like web pages. Although it is beyond the scope
of this book to investigate everything about PDFs, a
quick look at a few options will be helpful.
1 80 C H A P T E R 1 1 : M ORE I L LU ST RATOR
it. In The compression tab is where you will find the
most savings of file size. See if you can apply what
you learned in Photoshop about image sizing in this
requester box.
1 82 C H A P T E R 1 1 : M ORE I L LU ST RATOR
can change the angle of the gradient (if it is linear) by
typing in a number in the box below the gradient type
and you can change where the fade of one color to
the next happens by dragging the diamond at the top
of the bar showing the gradient.
Gradient mesh
with one point,
and with the color
changed to white
for that point.
1 84 C H A P T E R 1 1 : M ORE I L LU ST RATOR
but give you very powerful controls over shading il-
lustrations.
Image Trace
Image Trace allows you to take a continuous tone im-
age like a photograph and make a vector description
of it that can be edited in Illustrator. While not an es-
pecially frequent way of dealing with things, it can
get you out of trouble, such as when you need to edit
a logo or line drawing from a bitmap image.
Illustrator Effects
In the property panel below Opacity and also in the
Effect menu, there are two groups of effects (fx). The
first group is composed of Illustrator effects. These
can be used to modify shapes or type. Except with us-
ing the Rasterize effect your shapes and type remain
Illustrator vector objects.
1 86 C H A P T E R 1 1 : M ORE I L LU ST RATOR
The second group of effects is called Photoshop Ef-
fects. These should probably not be used since most
convert the object into a bitmap with pixels (they ras-
terize it), leaving you with very limited further con-
trols, bloating your file size, and increase the possi-
bilities of having poor quality.
SVG Files
First select a graphic, such as an icon or a logo, in Il-
lustrator. Go to File > Export Selection... and choose
SVG Format. This will export your graphic as a Scal-
able Vector Graphic which can be placed in many ap-
plications and even used as a web graphic.
More PDF
changing file size of PDFs
embedded fonts
saving PDFs embedded into Illustrator files
Adobe Acrobat Pro for special PDFs
Gradient Mesh
making and editing meshes
Image Trace
using image trace, options, expanding
Illustrator Effects
Illustrator (vector) and Photoshop (bitmap) effects
SVG Files
Exporting vector graphics for web and other applica-
tions
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12 More Photoshop
Actions
Often when editing images you need to perform
the same techniques on many images. For example,
you have a hundred images from an event, and even
though only a few will ultimately be used, they all
need to be sized and prepped for InDesign so that al-
ternate designs can quickly be made.
Lens Correction
If you are If you are getting images from a digital camera, there
taking your own are many faults that are common in the images.
photographs, Straight lines may be distorted (warped) by the lens.
Another There may be parallax distortion by not lining up the
Photography Book camera perfectly with a geometric object. Or the im-
is an excellent age may get darker at the corners. This is called vi-
resource by gnetting.
this author.
Going to Filter > Lens Correction will allow you to
correct for many of these faults. There is even an au-
tomatic mode where it can correct for the faults in-
herent to the particular camera (and lens) used. And,
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if you are using images in the various 'raw' formats
directly from higher-end amateur cameras, you can
perform these adjustments before the image opens
in Photoshop in Camera Raw.
Bridge
Bridge is not actually part of Photoshop, but a sepa-
rate application of the Adobe Suite that is often used
in conjunction with Photoshop. Find Adobe Bridge
and within it navigate to a folder of images.
Navigate to a
folder of images
using the nav bar
near the top of
You can see previews of each image in this appli- Bridge’s window.
cation. You can also re-order your images, rename
them, move them, give them ratings, see the details
of them with a magnifier, see written information as-
sociated with them and open them in Photoshop by
double-clicking on the image. You can also preview
InDesign and Illustrator files using Bridge.
Color Profile
Images on computers (or printers, cameras, scan-
ners, etc.) are actually made up of numbers describ-
ing the color of each pixel. What color corresponds
with what number is defined in a color profile.
Smart Layers
Using smart layers is a way of combining Illustrator
and Photoshop that is best described by doing it.
A vector layer
selected in
Photoshop.
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Illustrator and Photoshop, with changes you made
in Illustrator automatically updating in Photoshop
whenever you save the Illustrator file. When you are
finished editing your Illustrator shape, go to Layer >
Rasterize > Smart Layer to make that layer a pixel lay-
er like any other Photoshop layer.
Layer Adjustments
There are a few more specialized types of layers in
Photoshop. The most common is an ‘adjustment lay-
er’, or a layer that only contains image adjustments
such as levels.
Lens Correction
correcting distortion and vignetting
Bridge
using bridge with Photoshop
Color Profile
complexity of color on computer
Smart Layers
using and editing vector images in Photoshop
Layer Adjustments
making and editing a layer adjustment
Poking Around
With InDesign a lot can be learned from just look-
ing through panels, tools, and menus. There is much
that is self-explained or very much like Illustrator. For
example, if you wanted type with a drop shadow, go
to Object > Effects > Drop Shadow with a type frame
selected. You will find that although there are many
of the same options for a drop shadow in InDesign
as in Illustrator, it behaves differently. Not that you
should use drop shadows—they are just a handy ex-
ample here!
Stroke on type
Often when you are printing white (or light type) on
a black (or dark background), ink from the dark back-
ground will seep into the letters making them effec-
tively thinner. This is one reason why ink-jet printers
are not preferable when using small (or even text- Most serif fonts
sized) letters. But you can compensate for this some- have to fine of
what by putting a slight (start with 0.1 point) stroke details for this
on some sans serif letters in the same color as your rather ham-handed
letters. technique.
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document, you are asked if you would like to set up
these facing pages, so that you can format the right
hand and left hand pages differently. At the very least
page numbers are generally on the outside of pages,
meaning they will be on the left of some pages and on
the right of other pages.
Commercial Printers
This book is geared towards the beginning user of
these applications, and you should know more be-
fore sending jobs to a printing company. If you need
to do it now, talk to the printer about how to set up
your documents, both in Photoshop if you are using
images, and in InDesign. As a matter of fact, getting
instructions from your printer is a good thing to do
Paragraph Rules
Underlining type is virtually never done in designs,
but adding lines below or above text and extending
past the text is done quite a bit. These lines are called
rules. Since they appear in conjunction with a return,
and since pressing the return key defines a para-
graph, they are called paragraph rules.
Baseline Grid
When designing multiple columns of type or even
facing pages of type, a designer will strive to keep
each line of text directly in line with the line in the
other page or column. This is one of hundreds of sub-
tleties of type you have seen many times over but
probably never noticed.
20 0 C H A P T E R 1 3 : M ORE I N D E S I G N
> Grids&Guides > Show Baseline Grid. This will put
a number of horizontal guides on the page (you may
have to zoom in to see them) so that you can see that
each line of text from one column lines up with that in
the other. In preferences you could change the spac-
ing of these lines to correspond with your font size
(or more accurately your leading), but we don’t really
need to, as the default probably shows if your text is
lined up or not.
The text you have more than likely lines up, and you
might wonder why we need that grid for something
so obvious. Here is why: Add a header or two a few
point sizes bigger than your text. Unless you are in-
credibly lucky, the text no longer lines up across col-
umns. Here is where the baseline grid comes in. Do
a little math, and change the paragraph spacing for
your headers so that it is a multiple of your text lead-
ing. Check the results by using the baseline grid.
For this book the
Images and other illustrations can also set the lines headers and the
apart so that they no longer line up. Good design is space above them
difficult, but a baseline grid can help you keep things take up 29 points,
in order. In this text the baseline of the facing pages which is double
and also the margin notes all align. the 14.5 point
leading of the text.
Swatches & Tints <<
You may have noticed a panel for swatches. These
are commonly used colors in your document. If you
use a color multiple times, add it to the swatches so
that it is consistent throughout your design. You can
add it directly from the menu of the color panel or
you can make a new swatch from the menu (or icon
at the bottom) of the swatches panel.
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Chapter 13 Review
Poking Around
learning more about the application
Stroke on Type
using stroke to ‘push back’ ink
stroke and fill on letters and text frames
Spreads
facing pages, 2 page master pages
printing issues
pages smaller than print size
Commercial Printers
talking to the printer
Paragraph Rules
using rules and applying in paragraph styles
Baseline Grid
use of baseline grid, grid preferences