InDesignSecrets Videocast #6: Effects Sans Objects
You can create some cool effects in InDesign by applying effects and hiding the object itself — for example gaussian blur, super noisy blur, and pink satin. Learn how in this short and informative videocast by InDesignSecrets co-hosts David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion.
You can watch the videocast by clicking on the video below, or — if you want a larger version of it — go directly to our channel at indesignsecrets.blip.tv. These videos are also available on Adobe.tv (though it usually takes a few weeks for each episode to be posted there). Alternatively, you can watch (or even subscribe) to the video podcast on iTunes with this link.
Thank you to our videocast sponsor, Badia Software, maker if the BigPicture plug-in!
Comments? Special features you’d like us to cover? Please chime in below!
@ 05:50 David said, it’s seems to be a bug that InDesign sometimes grayed out the transparency settings. I don’t think it’s a bug, I think it’s an unwelcome feature (or a missing feature?).
Before you switched to the transparency, you colored the text in paper color. To do this, the target for colors was set to text instead to object. Although InDesign can not apply transparency to text (perhaps some day?), this setting is observed by the transparency panel. It’s grayed, because you cannot apply any of these settings to text. From the view of a software developer this might seems logical.
Solution: Press the “J”-Key!
@Martin: Excellent! Thank you for the insight on that. I believe that sometimes the Effects panel does gray out in other (more mysterious) situations. But you are correct that in this case, it is easily explained. I’m embarassed that I didn’t notice that myself.
Are you sure? I never had a grayed-out panel, except in this Situation.
@Martin: I almost never say I’m sure about anything. But I’m “pretty sure.”