Making a Pop-Out

Making a "Pop-Out"

A pop-out is a commonly used technique in magazine and newspaper publishing where certain details of the imagea head, an arm, a legbreak out of the image's bounding rectangle. There are several ways (aren't there always?) to accomplish this. But if the image will be placed in a page layout program, the technique that offers the most design flexibility is to sandwich two versions of the image together in InDesign: one version is uncropped, the other has a layer mask defining which parts of the image are masked and which parts protrude outside of the bounding rectangle.

Figure 4.50. Two versions of the same streetcar: full frame (example A) and the other masked front (example B).

1.	Open the Streetcar image.
2.	Duplicate the image (Image > Duplicate) and name this version Streetcar Masked.
3.	Draw a pen path around the front of the streetcar. As insurance, double-click the work path to save it, then convert the path to a selection: from the Paths palette choose Make Selection and set the Feather radius to 0.
4.	Click Add Layer Mask to convert the selection to a mask. Blur the mask with a Gaussian Blur of 1.5 pixels, then use Levels on the layer mask to choke the mask as necessary. Figure 4.51. The front of the streetcar "cut out" with a layer mask.
5.	Use the Blur tool (r) on the Layer Mask to soften the edge of the shadow at the front of the streetcar.
6.	In InDesign, choose File > Place (Command/Ctrl-D) and position the uncropped version. Choose Edit > Copy (Command/Ctrl-C) and then Paste in Place (Command-Shift-Option-V/Ctrl-Shift-Alt-V) to paste a copy exactly on top of the original.
7.	With the copy of the streetcar selected, choose Place again and, making sure you have Replace Selected Item checked, choose the cropped version of the streetcar. Nothing looks any different, but you now have the two versions of the streetcar, one on top of the other.
8.	From the Object menu, choose Arrange > Send to Back to send the cropped version behind the uncropped version. Click away from your selection, then reselect the top (uncropped) version. Now you can adjust the size of the picture frame from the left, cropping the full-frame version and revealing the cropped portion beneath. Figure 4.52. The finished pop-out in Adobe InDesign.