OUGD405: Indesign Workshops.

Using in design to create a new document, usually used for assessing and setting layouts.

Manipulating Indesign for its extra options, such as adding a grid, which we can produce by increasing the number of columns to the specified need. Also able to increase the gutter width, the space in between the columns on the page. Ability to apply other guides such as margins. Bleed and slug are the most important option of the selection, Bleed is used to inform the process of trimming work after print. For example. many printers cannot print right to the edge of the paper. An a5 piece of work on an a4 piece of paper will need trimming, to compensate for inaccuracies involved with trimming, we can extend the piece of work, adding trim marks to the specified size - a5, which we can then use as a guide for cutting. Avoiding any unwanted white space around the edge of the work.

 

Standard bleed amount is 3mm. Slug area is an area larger than the bleed area. Use to contain marks such as crop and registration. This marks will appear on the page, but will be lost when the work is printed and the trimmed. Can be used to determine where folds will appear in pieces of work.

Facing pages should only be used when we are trying to set up a publication that is of book formation. If facing pages is not chosen, all will be seen is individual pages. Uncheck pages for a single page.

Set up.

Black line is the trim line and the red border is the bleed line. 

 

Pages can be changed and reviewed in the pages tab.

Document set up can allow us to alter some decisions we made about our pages at the start.

 

 

Pages pallet allows me to change my pages, here I can add pages.

 

Pages pallet give me a quick way to navigate through my pages without having to scroll. Here I can click on whichever page and I will be taken directly to it. I can also remove pages using this pallet aswell as other page management functions.

Creating a document with facing pages.

We can see in the pallet that this 4 page document is now set up with facing pages.

 

 

Rulers can be added by dragging guides from the top or from the left.

 

i can also create a grid set up through the layout option, using the tool create guides in which I can set a number of rows and colmuns.

 

 Creating a text frame through the text tool on the left toolbar. the outline of this box is blue.

 

To view how text will look in a publication we can use a tool called placeholder text, where the text box will fill with text, to view how text will look. 

 

 

Text can be edited when highlighted using the toolbar at the top of the page, or using the type menu. 

here we can change the font and size etc, here we can also select the character pallet. This can be used tho format text and stays permanently on screen for future use.

 

With the selection tool, we can change the size of the frame, its angle, changing from blocks to columns of text, and moving the text to experiment/ create different layouts. 

 

Guide to show the text is laying in the vertical center of the page.

Green lines appear to show when text is aligned.

 

Placing text into a text box from text saved into a folder in user work. 

 

Small red square in the bottom right hand corner is an overflow indicator, showing that the frame is not large enough to with hold all of the text, we can make the frame larger so that it recieves all of the text. We can also create another frame in which we can make the text flow from one frame to another. Ideal for when we are using a column layout.

 

Working with images. 

 When working with images in photoshop we must prepare them at actual size, so that size does not need to be altered when image is placed into indesign. We also need to make sure that the colour mode is CMYK or grey scale. Resolution also needs to be set at 300dpi ready for print. Images in photoshop need to be saved as tiff or psd files not Jpegs.

 When working in illustrator, we do not need to worry about resolution as we are working with vectors, it is infinitely scalable, we do not need to make illustrator artwork at actual size. We still have to make sure we are working with colours in CMYK. Save the work as an illustrator file. 

We get images on to the page using the place option in the file menu.

We do not need to create a frame in perporation for images.

Indesign will create a frame and place the image into the frame. The frame will be the size of the image. 

When the frame of the image is blue, we can use the frame to crop parts of the image out. 

 

When hovering the mouse over the image two circles appear. these are called the content grabber. This selects the content of the image and produces a brown frame around the image. Using this frame we can manipulate functions such as resizing the image. 

 

 

image can be increased by up to 2% but no larger. 

Working with illustrator images. 

We can make a frame ready for the image to be imported into using the rectangle cross tool. 

 

 

The illustrator artwork is much bigger than the frame.

 

However Illustrator files can be increased in scale in indesign as they are create using vectors.

 

When images are imported into indesign. We are only importing part of the file. Therefore we always appear to have an image that although may be high resolution, such as an illustrator file, it appears low resolution. When placing an image into indesign, we establish a LINK between the image and the indesign document. 

 

We can few our images in the links section to the right of our screen. The blue number to the right of the image tells us what page the image is on, for quick selection. When hovering over the name of the image, we are given the location where the image is stored. 

 When sending the file to print indesign will find the original, whole image from where it is saved. This is because indesign is only used for creating arrangements therefore the full image isn't needed, using the whole images would slow the program down and files would become too big. Therefore when creating a indesign file, we should save it in a folder along with the images we have used. If I don't keep one of my images, e.g I delete or do not save it, we are greeted in indesign with a red question mark upon the corner of the missing image. To try and solve this problem, we can double click on the question mark (missing links) and look through our folders to try and relocate the original image. 

 

We can alter the visual quality of our images by using the display performance tool to increase or decrease the quality.

 

Above is how an image how it appears in fast display, fast display does not show the image in order to ensure a faster running computer, not slowing the program down, so that designers can focus on the text and arrangement. When printed however, the original image still prints, this is ensured through the chain symbol in the top left, that shows the original image is linked to the picture.

 

Although we are not supposed to re size an image in indesign we can reduce the scale of an image to fit in arrangement. However we do need to go back to Photoshop and re size the image to fit into the arrangement. Above we can see the scale of my image is 21%.

 

We can change image size in Photoshop. Here we can change the measurement to percent. Then just adding the scale percent in from Photoshop.

I have drawn and orange cross on my work in Photoshop so when it appears in indesign it is evident that the image has changed.

In Photoshop:

 

Changed in indesign:

 

When working with tiffs our images are opaque. If we want to work with transparency we must work with photoshop images.

In oder to create layers that will support transparency, we have to change the background layer into Layer 0.

 

Cut out the image, I have used the fuzzy select tool, go to the select menu to invert and then press the backspace key in order to create a transparent background. 

 

 

 

We must save this image as a photoshop file to preserve the transparency, When we place the image into indesign we will be working with the isolated image without the background. 

 

 

Fitting the image to the frame, or the frame to the content is viable through the object fitting menu.

 

In order to control stacking of frames, for things such as text overlay etc, we have the ability to arrange the order of objects through the simple tool below:

We can control how we view the document in indesign, in order to view the document how it will be printed, without distracting frame etc, we can press w, which will hide all frames and grids etc. we must make sure we are not typing at the time. It is not useful to work in this format however.

 

We can also view the document according to other options, where we can view ares such as the slug and bleed options:

 

 

in order to wrap text around an image, we can use the text wrap option. 

 

If we apply the second text wrap option, the image with then interact with the text differently. the text will wrap around the image.

 

We can change the gutter space around the text by increasing the measurement by a few millimeters. This makes the text wrap look much more crisp. 

 

To wrap around the transparent layered image we must choose the third option. which unlocks another menu: Here we must select alpha channel. Indesign will detect what parts of the image are transparent and wrap around the opaque colour.

 

 

We can also create shapes (I have use the elipse tool) and wrap text around these.

 

We can also use shapes (I have created one with the pen tool) As a frame to fill with text.

 

pasting an illustrator file into indesign, works as if the file itself was created in indesign. we can select a park of the illustrator image to become a text frame.

 

We can change the colour of frames using the colour tools, very useful is the swatch tool.

 

 

This is the original illustrator file, with edited colour using the swatch tool. 

By clicking the T in the swatch/ colour pallet we can edit the colour of the text inside the text frame. 

 

 

 We can create our own swatches in the colour menu:

 

 

When making indesign documents into a pdf there are several options. Press quality is the best quality pdf, great quality for both print and screen. Smallest File size, looks good on screen, but isn't a good quality for printing, this is a good option for sending people design that they only need to view on screen, e.g. in an email and on a blog. High quality print, works both on screen and on high quality printers such as in the print room or for laser printers.