Making Basic Picture Modifications

After you import a picture into an InDesign document, you can modify either the picture or the frame that contains it. The following options are available for modifying imported pictures:

• You can crop pictures in a rectangular or freeform frame.

• You can use tools, the Control palette, or the Transform pane to rotate, scale, and/or shear pictures.

• You can flip pictures horizontally and/or vertically via commands in the Control palette's palette menu or in the Transform pane's palette menu.

• You can apply color and tint to imported gray-scale and one-bit (black-and-white) bitmap pictures.

  Cross-Reference ‚  

  For information about modifying frames , see Chapter 11.

Whether you want to modify a picture after importing it into a document or open the graphic file in its original program and modify it there is up to you.

InDesign lets you crop, rotate, scale, shear, and flip any imported picture regardless of format. Generally, you're safe applying any of these transformations on vector-based formats such as Illustrator-, FreeHand-, and CorelDraw-generated EPS graphics ‚ but not Photoshop EPS files, which are pixel-based images in an EPS shell. Applying these transformations to DCS files is also safe. However, because EPS files are encased (thus, the term encapsulated ) in a sort of protective shell, you can't select or modify any of the component pieces in InDesign ‚ you must use a dedicated application to make such modifications.

For bitmapped images, such as TIFF, JPEG, GIF, and Photoshop-native files, all the aforementioned transformations except increasing horizontal and/or vertical scale are safe to perform in InDesign. But I recommend doing as much as possible in the original program, to minimize unexpected distortions in your final output. For example, if your imported images are more than twice as large as the size you need them to be in your layout, resize the images in an image editor, then reimport the resized image in InDesign. This speeds printing and prevents moir ƒ patterns that could result when InDesign takes the reduced pixels of the original image and creates new pixels for output ‚ resizing the image in an image editor usually resizes the pixels in a way that outputs well. Similarly, enlarging an image in InDesign can cause a blocky look, while an image editor might let you resize it in a way that preserves image detail.

Cropping pictures

Remember, when you import a picture using the Place command (File ‚ Place, or z +D or Ctrl+D) or by dragging a graphics file into a document window, that the picture is contained in a graphics frame ‚ either the frame that was selected when you placed the picture or the frame that was automatically created if a frame wasn't selected. The upper-left corner of an imported picture is automatically placed in the upper-left corner of its frame.

Resizing a picture's frame

The easiest way to crop a picture is to resize the frame that contains it. If you want to mask out (hide) portions of an imported picture, you have the option of using an irregular shape as the frame, a picture's built-in clipping path (if it has one), or a clipping path you generated in InDesign (by choosing Object ‚ Clipping Path or pressing Option+Shift+ z +K or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K).

Cross-Reference ‚  

Clipping paths are covered in Chapter 25.

To resize the frame, use the Selection tool to drag the frame's handles to reveal the portion of the picture you want to print (and to conceal the portion you don't want to print). Hold the Shift key as you drag to maintain the proportions of the frame.

Moving a picture in its frame

You can also click on a picture with the Direct Selection tool, and then drag the picture in its frame to reveal and conceal different parts of the picture. For example, you could crop the top and left edges of a picture by dragging the picture above and to the left of its original position (in the upper-left corner of the frame).

Of course, you could accomplish the same thing by selecting the frame with the Selection tool and dragging the upper-left corner down and to the right. The advantage of moving the image within the frame is that, when you've positioned the frame in the desired location in your layout, resizing the frame to crop the image then requires you to move the resized frame back to the desired location.

Using an irregular frame

If you want to use an irregular shape as the frame for a picture that's currently cropped by a rectangular frame, here's what you do:

1. Click on the Direct Selection tool (or press A if the Type tool isn't selected).

2. Click on the picture you want to place in a freeform shape (don't click on its frame), then choose Edit ‚ Copy or press z +C or Ctrl+C.

3. Click on the shape (or create one if you haven't already) you want to use as a cropping frame.

   It can be any kind of object except a straight line.

4. Choose Edit ‚ Paste Into or press Shift+ z +V or Ctrl+Shift+V.

   Figure 24-1 shows an example.

   
   Figure 24-1: In this example, the coffee cup and saucer picture has been copied and pasted into a freeform frame that reveals only the cup. The shape was created by tracing the contour of the cup using the Pen tool.

   Cross-Reference ‚  

   For more information about creating and modifying freeform shapes , see Chapters 26 and 27.

   Note ‚  

   If you select a frame with the Direct Selection tool instead of the Selection tool, handles are displayed only at the frame corners rather than at the bounding-box corners and midpoints. When you select a frame with the Direct Selection tool, you can reshape the frame, and thus crop the picture differently, by dragging corner points, adding and deleting points, and so on.

Of course, you could also create the irregular shape first, and then use the Place command to place the graphic file directly into the shape. Using an irregular shape to crop a picture is similar to using a clipping path except that you create the irregular shape yourself using InDesign's object-creation tools while a clipping path is either built into a graphics file or generated by InDesign (via choosing Object ‚ Clipping Path or pressing Option+Shift+ z +K or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+K).

Rotating, scaling, and shearing pictures

InDesign provides two methods for rotating, scaling, and shearing pictures: You can click and drag a picture using transformation tools, or you can use the Control palette or Transform pane, as explained in the next section, to enter numerical values into fields or to choose a preset value from a pop-up menu.

The method you use is up to you. If you're into the hands-on-mouse approach to object manipulation and page building, you'll probably prefer the click-and-drag method of modifying pictures. Others prefer the pane approach. You'll probably end up using both methods. Regardless of the tool you use, the steps for transforming a picture are pretty much the same:

1. Click on the Direct Selection tool (or press A if the Type tool isn't selected).

2. Click on the picture you want to modify.

3. If you want, you can click and drag the object's point of origin (by default it's in the upper-left corner of a graphics frame).

   All transformations applied to an object are applied relative to the point of origin. For example, when you rotate an item, it rotates around its point of origin.

4. Click and drag to perform the transformation. Hold down the Shift key to constrain transformation increments to preset values.

   For example, holding down the Shift key while rotating a picture limits rotation increments to multiples of 45 degrees. If you pause for a moment between clicking and dragging ‚ long enough for the crosshair pointer to change to the arrowhead pointer ‚ the transformed picture is displayed while you drag. If you don't pause, only the picture boundary is displayed while you drag. If the Transform pane is open, the value in the field that's associated with the selected tool changes as you drag.

5. Release the mouse button when the picture looks the way you want it to look.

   Tip ‚  

   If you hold down the Option or Alt key while using a transformation tool, the modification will be performed on a clone of the selected object.

   Tip ‚  

   If you double-click on a transformation tool, you'll get a dialog box that lets you select the appropriate settings for that tool.

Each transformation tool has a few idiosyncrasies (Figure 24-2 shows the tool icons):

• Rotation tool: You can select this tool by pressing R if the Type tool isn't selected. Holding down the Shift key while dragging limits rotation increments to multiples of 45 degrees.

• Scale tool: This tool shares a pop-up menu with the Shear tool. If you hold down the Shift key while dragging with the Scale tool, only the horizontal scale of the selected picture changes if you drag horizontally, only the vertical scale changes if you drag vertically, and the original proportions are maintained if you drag diagonally.

• Shear tool: This tool applies a combination of rotation and skew to a picture. (The Transform pane includes separate Rotation and Skew controls, but no Shear-specific controls. However, the Control palette has controls for all three.) Holding down the Shift key constrains the selected picture's rotation value to increments of 45 degrees.

• Free Transform Tool: Advanced users will like the Free Transform tool. When you select this tool, InDesign lets you scale, rotate, and resize ‚ but not shear ‚ selected objects. If you select within the frame, you can move the object by dragging it. If you select a frame handle (whether corner or midpoint ), you can resize the object by dragging. Finally, if you move the mouse very close to a frame handle, you will see a curved arrow, which indicates you can rotate the object around that object's center point. Having a tool that does more than one thing can be confusing, but once you get the hang of it, it sure beats constantly changing tools!

Figure 24-2: The icons for the Rotation, Scale, Shear, and Free Transform tools in the Tools palette.

Figure 24-3 shows the various dialog boxes that you get when double-clicking the Rotation, Scale, and Shear tools. These provide both numerical control over the operations but also let you choose to copy the transformed item.

Figure 24-3: The Rotation, Scale, and Shear dialog boxes.