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Adobe InDesign CC – Advanced Training

How To Get The Most Of Photoshop & Illustrator In Adobe InDesign CC

Daniel Walter Scott || VIDEO: 63 of 74

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Hi there, in this video we're going to learn how to use InDesign with Photoshop and Illustrator. If you're tempted to skip on we're going to look at some cool little tricks, both to connect them, but also to do some of the day-to-day stuff we do in Photoshop and Illustrator, that we need in InDesign, like this one here, see spot the difference, there's this guy, just disappeared, super easy and quick. Same with the one, this image here, not long enough, we're going to magically extend the background. Also down the bottom here, I'll turn off Preview mode, zoom out. That's the original image on Photoshop, we're going to crop this up on to a nice white background, then we're going to move it, so, can you see, the text wraps around the outside and it's on a nice white background. All of that, plus we'll do some stuff with Illustrator. It's not as exciting, but I'll show you the tips and tricks for using Illustrator with InDesign as well. All right, let's go and do that now.

So for this one to work, I'm going to make a new document. I would like it to have, say some pages, because I want Spreads. How many pages? Let's just have four. Let's click 'Create'. So working with Photoshop, the best thing to do is, if I import an image here, let's say I'm working with '09 Working with Photoshop', and I bring in 'Content Aware Fill 1'. If I bring in this image, then drag it into my CC Libraries, that's not a great way of working with Photoshop because if I double click, it kind of opens it up. In Photoshop, it opens up in its own document here in InDesign. So I'm going to delete both of these guys, not sure why there's two.

So instead of doing it this way, I'm going to, in Photoshop, open him up. 'Content Aware Fill 1'. And drag it into the Library this way. That way when I jump back over to InDesign here and I drag out the image, they are connected better, so it's a really big image. So I'm going to drag this out. Let's say I want to use this for double page Spread, so I'm going to go to here. I'll drag out this image. Zooming out a little bit, because I want to go from corner to corner. This particular image works nicely across a double page Spread. Let's say I want to edit it a little bit, let's say I want to remove part one of these. I can double click it here in my Styles, and now it opens up in Photoshop. You'll notice, it wasn't that original that I opened. So this one called 'Background.psd', it's the one, I dragged into it. Let's do a little bit of Photoshop. Now I'm not going to cover much of Photoshop here. I just want to, I guess, get you excited about doing a full Photoshop course. Of course, I've got one. There's an Intro and Advanced one that I'm just forming at the moment. Obviously, not right this second, because I'm doing this one.

Let's grab the 'Lasso Tool'. We can be pretty basic with this one. Say I want to remove this pen thing, I'm going to go around here. Really basic selection. We're going to use 'Edit', 'Fill'. And by default there's this one called 'Content Aware'. Basically, it's magic Fill, watch this. Cool, huh! Let's go to 'Select', 'Deselect'. And it was never there. Let's go to 'File', 'Save'. This is the really nice connection between here, in InDesign, drop back into InDesign. That updated, this updated. Really good connection with Photoshop. Let's look at using Photoshop to-- one of my big problems is - I'm going to delete that guy - is if I bring in an image, let's say-- actually let's add in Photoshop, do it the proper way.

So 'Content Aware Fill', let's say, let's do this one here. Let's open up 'Content Aware Scale 1'. My smiling face. With the 'Move tool', drag it into my Library. Then in InDesign, we run into this problem. I'm going to drag it in, and it's just the wrong dimensions. So I'm going to drag it, and you see it just doesn't cover a double page Spread, just doesn't. So you end up with this kind of gap over here. So let's double click it to open up in Photoshop. Remember, I closed down that original one.

We're going to look at another really useful tool in Photoshop, especially when you're working with InDesign. It's called the Content Aware Scale Tool. First of all I want to make my background a little bigger. So I'm going to go 'Image', and go to 'Canvas Size'. And which way? I'm going to push it from the left, in the middle here. I want to make it just wider. It's 4000 pixels at the moment, let's make it 7000. And because it's pushing from this corner over here it's going to make a bit of a gap over here. Zoom out.

So what I'd like to do is grab my 'Rectangle tool'. Drag a box, kind of right from the edge, all the way, grab this fellow. All of this text, then go to 'Edit', 'Content Aware Scale'. Now this tool is even more magic, watch this. Holy Molly magic. Our background just keeps on creating. There's a bit of weirdness going on with my shadow but that's okay for this instance. It just looks like I've cast a really big shadow. So now I've got kind of a double page Spread size. I'm going to hit 'Save'. Now I'm back into InDesign. And now it's a better proportion. So I'm going to resize it now. I probably made a bit too much. Well actually a lot too much. But at least it's able to kind of generate more background without destroying me. So that's the way to connect with Photoshop.

I'll show you a couple of other exercises for that one. Often when I'm teaching people, I get excited by those two features. We looked at Content Aware Fill 1, let's look at 2. There's times when this doesn't work. This one's going to work okay. So again, the Lasso tool. It doesn't matter what kind of tool you use. I'm going to use the Lasso tool because it's a pretty blunt instrument. But you can use the Magic Wand tool if you like. Trying to get around his bike. Going around it, you can see, I'm pretty liberal. And again, let's go to 'Edit', 'Fill'. Let's try and make him disappear. It's not bad. Got a bit of that back in there. So there's time where it just-- it gets you close, you might be able to use say the Clone tool stamp now to kind of fudge it out but it might be just perfect. This one's a little hard because of the stripy lines here. So, doesn't work every time.

Let's do one more before we go. Let's go 'File', 'Open', 'Fill or Scale'. We're not going to get into super advanced stuff here. I'll do that in my Advanced Photoshop course, but I want to give you a few techniques for working with InDesign. Let's say I want to make this wider again to fit, might be a banner ad you're doing or just a little image you need some text to put on. So the same thing, let's go to 'Image', 'Canvas Size'. It's kind of like pushing out from that side. Width, let's make it, maybe '700' pixels. Click 'OK'. We got an extra box over here. Now by default, doesn't always work. I'll click on this. You've seen my Marquee tool. Go to 'Edit', and let's say 'Content Aware Scale'. I'm going to drag it out. It's kind of working but when I pull it a little too early it's not working perfectly.

So what you can do though is, using Rectangle Marquee tool again, actually just grab a chunk of it, don't have to grab everything. And then, go to 'Edit' 'Content Aware Scale', and just drag that out. So, the perspective's changing on the floor, and hit 'return' to finish it. 'Select', 'Deselect' to get rid of it. But to be honest, it should be a bit too hard to pick unless you knew that floor. It's pretty cool, huh! Another option that will probably work for this one is-- I'm undoing that, I'm going to grab my 'Magic Wand Tool'. Click once in the white area. In this case the Tolerance is too high. So what we're going to do is lower the Tolerance to say, something like '15'. Grab my 'Magic Wand Tool, click in here, so it just gets the white area. I'm going to go to 'Edit'. 'Fill', and I'm going to use 'Content Aware' Fill. And we're going to cross our fingers, see how it does. Taking a while. Not bad. It's made some alignment issues down the bottom there. Not absolutely perfect, but it was great, but I wanted to give you a couple of used cases that weren't absolutely perfect. So when you're doing your work you might run into somebody's problems.

Let's look at one of the other good uses of Photoshop for InDesign. Is that, putting things on a white background. I'll show that quick and dirty version. And I'll show you how to use Layers in InDesign. So let's open up a document here in Photoshop. And in the '09 Working with Photoshop', grab 'Quick Mask & Layers'. Now I've got a document, it's got some layers. It's got an Ellipse, it's got a logo, and it's got a background. What I'd like to do is to mask out. So I'm going to turn the eyeballs off on these two. And in here, I'd like to mask out this background.

Now the best way to do a Mask, or the quickest way, is to grab the 'Quick Selection Tool'. It's kind of mixed in here, if I hold down the 'Magic Wand Tool', there he is there. I'm going to zoom in a little bit. This cool tool learns as you go. What I'm going to do is click across the red. You see, it jumps out, and grabs the red. Just kind of printing it in here. And it's jumped to the edges, it's clever enough to know that's red as well. I click this once. Watch this, I'm going to zoom in, 'Command +'. I'll just drag across that red bit. So it's grabbed all the red. What I'd like to do is also grab this bit which is the pillow, grab this pillow. I just kind of painted across it. Down the bottom here, I'm going to zoom in, and say—

Actually I'm going to paint across this as well. This is where it probably gets a little bit messy, can you see, it's kind of jumped out, and misfits. It's doing okay. Let's say you want to remove parts. Say you've gone out, and you've grabbed this bit, and you're like "Ah, not that big." Hold down the 'Alt' key on a PC, or 'Option' key on a Mac. And just paint that bit out. So I don't want this bit now. So you do a little bit of painting in, and then painting out. Paint it back in, painting out. The cool thing about this brush is that as you do more, it kind of knows what you mean. Gets a little better and better as you're working.

So some of the first selections you do aren't great, but then, if I hold down 'Alt and say, actually, I don't want you, don't want you. That will do for the moment. It looks pretty good around the outside here. What I'm going to do is use the Quick Mask Button. With that selected, got my selection, I'm going to click on this guy here. Hopefully, I zoom out, and then place you with the mouse. So, we've done a little mask. This could be just nice, just to have white out graphics in your InDesign document, but let's say I've got this kind of mixed up document. It's got some layers, and all sorts of different layers going on. I'm going to save this. I'm going to save it to my 'Desktop', 'Coursework'. Just so I don't ruin your version that you're working on through the Exercise Files.

So in InDesign we're going to bring in - I'm going to get rid of that thing. I'm going to bring in the 'psd' that I was just working with, 'File', 'Place'. I'll put mine on my 'Desktop', in 'Coursework'. And 'Quick Mask & Layers'. So I bring it in, and I grab it all. It's kind of working, it's got my mask, which is cool, but I don't want this stuff. I want to get rid of these, this part of this layer. With it selected, you go to 'Objects', and go to 'Object Layer Options'. This only works for the psd, because it's got layers. Also works with Illustrator, with layers. And you can say, I don't want you, and I don't want you. I just want this Layer 0 that I had on there. Click 'OK'. Now that same psd file still has the layers in it but I've turned them off to use in InDesign. What I could do now, is I'm going to resize this. I probably could have just dropped that off to start with, I realize that. But I'm got have this, I'm going to make it bigger and I'll do a bit of Text Wrap. We looked this way, way back. Remember, 'W' key, so I can see everything. I'm going to paste the text inside. It's inside 'Exercise Files', it's in '09 Working with Photoshop'. 'Long Text'. I'm going to hold 'Shift', click on this. Follow the text around it.

Now this cool little trick here, 'Window', 'Text Wrap'. There's an option that says, this third one in. Then, I can say, instead of saying, this clipping which is the Rectangle, I can say, 'Detect Edges'. And because it's got a white background I can increase this up, and do a cool kind of Text Wrap type thing. So it needs to be cropped out in Photoshop first. We'll use the 'Quick Select', along with a 'Layer Mask'.

That's it for using Photoshop. Let's look at one of the last things you can do using Illustrator. So in Illustrator, let's draw a quick shape. I'm not sure what I'm drawing here. I'm going to draw you, and you, and you. Beautiful, Dan. One little trick in Illustrator, I've got a full course in Illustrator but this is the best tool in the whole program. It's this one here called the Shape Builder. It allows me to hold down the Option key, and just kind of delete these. If you've ever used the Path Finder, you'll realize "Man, it's a whole lot easier than the Path Finder.' So I've got this beautiful thing.

Now I could be all very prim and proper and add it to my Library, then bring it across over here in InDesign, because there it is, and it's all connected. What I find quite easy and useful is just to copy it from here. So I've got it selected with my Black Arrow, 'Edit', 'Copy'. Then just paste it into InDesign. No need for Libraries, comes across, you can ungroup it, click off and start working with the individual parts. I'm not sure why there's two of them. Who knows, but just copying and pasting from Illustrator, I find is a super useful way instead of using the official libraries. But it doesn't update, so there are pros and cons.

All right my friends, that is how to use Photoshop and Illustrator with InDesign. Let's get on to the next video.