being a graphic design professional ;), you might get in the situation that you want to insert one or more pictures inside fonts (editable and non-vectorized) .

so you try to convert the text to outlines and place the picture inside the resulting frame.
but hei!
even though InDesign can do incredible things with text and images, at first sight it won’t do this…

in fact, it’s been possible since indesign 2!
all you need are some basic understanding of blending modes and four simple steps:

1. choose a bold or black typeface so that the image will be visible through it.
2. go to: fill text - swaches - paper
3.then type - create outline. and it will work
4. place image in text or simply drag and drop the image you want in the selected text

1. open a new document with the following settings.

2. when you create the layout split it into 3 parts

- the frontpage of the brochure should be divided into: 97 mm/ 100mm/100mm.
- divide also the backpage into: 100 mm/ 100 mm/ 97 mm.
doing this you will create a brochure that will fold (the backpage and frontpage) perfectly together
.
3. then you design your layout being carefull with the margins of the document (the elements of the layout have to be arranged within the margins limits)

For an interesting effect, you can make one image look as if it�??s inside multiple
frames:

1. Place the image in a circular frame.

2. Use Edit > Step and Repeat to create a row of frames.

3. Using the Direct Selection tool, shift-click to select each image

4. Using the Alignment controls in the Control
Palette, align first the top edges and
then the left edges of the images within
the frames. (Yes, you can align images just
like you can align frames!)

I made a site for some friends and i needed to put external images. Because they were too big i wanted to use a preloader. How did i make it? Follow this post and see.

1. First save all the images on a folder (for example /images - on the root of the site—see the previous post - how to use actions in photoshop)

2. Usually i make some thumbnails for all the images and then i use them as buttons for loading the big images…on every button i use this kind of action script

on(press){
gotoAndStop(113);

—this is where the empty movieclip is located(if it’s different from the buttons frame, if not you can delete this line)
loadMovie(”images/test001.png”, load_mc);
—this is how the image is loading on the movieclip—the path to the image and the destination
}

3. i used two objects, besides the buttons, a movieclip named load_mc, and a preloaderbar taken from the components panel

ps. put the progressbar and the movieclip in different layers

4. as you can see in the images below, i made some changes of the parameters for the preloaderbar component:
- mode = polled
- source = load_mc (this is the movieclip where all the images are loading in) and one change on the schema- found on the component inspector panel
- kind= autotrigger

and you are done.

if the images aren’t loading, make sure you save them with saveforweb in photoshop (they have to be nonprogressive) and if you need any help with flash..ask me and i’ll try to answer or find someone who will

until next time…. kisses!

not so long ago, at my old job, i quite frequently had to cut out the background of some photoshop images. nothing special so far…

but guess what: all of those images presented close-ups of people (women and children)… can you imagine how fun it is to cut off their hair? especially with curlly hair!!

i’ve tried everything! neither the pentool nor the magic wand did any magic!! not even after making an alpha channel and recreating the hair.

if i only knew then the vertus fluid mask filter…
here’s what you can do with it:

great details isn’t it?

and here’s how you do it:

1. after you install, select and apply the filter, push the delete local button

2. now click on the background you want to cut off (click on both sides of the object)

3. go to image > select autofill image

4. make sure you deactivate “show edges” in order to have a clearer image

5. select complex brush

6. and cover all the parts that are not selected

7. click on the cut out button

8. and… this is how it looks on transparent background, after everything’s done!

really simple and fast isn’t it?

btw: you maybe interested also in some previous posts, where i’ve told how to cut background using pen tool.

need more answers? post a comment

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comment “fine cut for object background in photoshop”

working as a designer within a quite small advertising company has pros an cons.

and although we manage some great accounts, like emporiki bank and nike, we also have smaller customers with smaller marketing departments (if any ).

in my experience these smaller companies always have “special requests” and provide us with fewer materials.

today i’ve had to do a print layout for a company that has provided me with only some paper sheets stuffed with a loooot of information. and couldn’t give any electronic support for this information.

now i had 2 options:
- i should either rewrite all the information
- use some OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to scan and import all the data.

within this post, i’ll show you what’s my favorite OCR software and how to use it.
i’m talking about abbyy finereader 7.0, and what i liko the most about it is that you can import really complicated schemes, chartes and tables.

1. after you open your scanned file, you should set the language the information is.

2. now, you have to push the read button and wait…

3. this is the final step: save and send doc

if you want to use it in indesign, here’s how you can import excel tables to indesign, import excel charts in indesign, and how to import word elements in indesign.

if you need more help with this, please post a comment

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comment “working with ocr sotfware to save time”

i’ve been writing you for some time now about how you can use text wrap in indesign.
and now, because some of you asked for this… i’d like to get into that in more detail
here’s how you can wrap some text on a nonregular formed object using indesign.
it’s a 6 steps tutorial which goes like this:

1. duplicate the image that you want to use for the text wrap:

2. select the duplicate image and go to object/clipping path

3. then choose the photoshop path (i’ve assumed that you’ve already created the path in photoshop … so you shoul this before you go on).

4. select with the direct selection tool the clipping and convert it into frame

5. delete the frame and if you go to direct selection tool you’ll see only the clipping path. now, just create a box containing the text you want to wrap on the path.

6. now you have only one step to go, so select the the clipping box > text wrap > wrap aroung object shape

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comment “wrap text around objects with clippling path in indesign”

did you ever want some fancier buttons? or controls?
did you ever wonder how you can create some regular (or non-regular) 3d objects?
here’s how!

first of all you have to create a 2d object that you want to convert to 3d object. for example, you need a circle to create a sphere. or a square to create a cube.

the object has to be drawn as a section of the object from one side as showed in the image below.

then you have to select the object and go to the menu effect/3D/revolve

now you can adjust a lot of stuff like light intensity, ambient light, blend steps, shading color, and the surface(plastic, diffuse, wireframe or no shading).

the final object can be like this:

you can adjust the drawing even after you’ve created the 3d object. this way you can see the changes from the apearance window.

just to have an ideea here are some -3d objects that i’ve created for you.

if you’d like to see this in action, here’s the site i’ve used it on: mediacont.

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comment “create 3D objects in illustrator”

you get a faster trace in illustrator as you downsample, because this action results in a less complex image to analyze.

and yes, you should be concerned about the resolution, as it is the most important factor with this. but have no fear!
here’s what you get if you bring an image into Illustrator at the highest resolution possible:

so here’s how you can use live trace in illustrator:

1. select the placed image, and click the live trace button in the control palette to trace it; choose black and white logo. (make sure that preview is checked in the live trace options dialog box)

after you select the black and white logo option, you will see your logo in black and white, so everything’s ok! don’t delete anything!

2. if u see there just not enough details, we have to put more threshold or select the live trace options icon from the control palette. the standard threshold value is 160. you might want to increase (or decrease) this value…

3. in the adjustments box, select resample. and use the slider to quickly adjust the image resolution, or type in the image resolution desired. then view the results in your layout:

4. now… just click on the expand button and the vector is ready:

5. now you just have to give back the colours to your logo. do this simply by using the colour codes (cmyk, rgb or pantone depending on what you need the logo for) or by using the eyedropper tool (i’m not going to offend you and explain how to do this. but if you need help, please post a comment!

and your done with live trace. isn’t that great? you have a logo for you to use in any layout you want! HA!

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comment “live trace in illustrator”

not so long ago i wrote you short tutorial on how to create a folding brochure in indesign .

and i’m still wodering:

1. is that tutorial helpfull enough for you to create a 3 column layout by yourself?
2. do you need additional help?
3. does any of the steps presented require more detail?

thanks for the feedback!

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comment “create a folding brochure in indesign”