Southern double-click to override tints
At the conference I spent a few hours helping attendees out with their Creative Suite questions at the “Creative Suite Clinic,” a booth set up by trainer extraordinaire Kacey Crouch.
One person came up and asked for a solution to this problem:
1. Fill an object with a color from Swatches and tint it back to say 30%.
2. When you apply another color (that’s 100%) from Swatches to the same object, the “tint” attribute remains … it becomes 30% blue, or magenta, or whatever.
How to “unstick” that attribute? Keyboard shortcut perhaps?
Hmmm. I had never noticed that. So I came up with an arcane way of creating another swatch that’s 99% of the solid color and applying that (an incoming tint trumps the existing one) and if you can’t live with the 1% of diff., then deleting that swatch and replacing it with the regular 100% one at the alert prompt.
Too much work! The next day someone came up with a better solution and sought me out to tell me about it. Starting with an object filled with a tinted Swatch color:
1. Select the object and click the desired (100%) color from Swatches. Keep your cursor there.
2. Wait for a count of two or three, then click that Swatch again. The object’s fill changes to 100% of the color.
Someone in the vicinity called this slow, drawn-out double-click a “Southern double-click.” I like that!
Hello Anne-Marie&David!
I LOVE INDESIGN SECRETS!!! ANd now I LOVE its website.
Couldn’t find a place in the website where I could write my oppinion about the site, so I do it here
Keep on going on! You are my guides:)(horizotal and vertical:)))) in diving into InDesign:) I like when you say something funny! Never stop this podcast! Greetings from wonderful Copenhagen!
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the podcast and site, Siavi. Thanks for the note. Our philosophy is, “If you’re not having fun with this stuff, why do it?”
That’s a great tip, Anne-Marie. I have been bothered by the persistent tint problem in the past. Southern double-clicking is a good solution.
–David Blatner
Almost every tip I get from your podcast or here on the website makes me go “wow” or “I didn’t know that”. I’m always looking for ways to speed up the design process. I have 2 of David’s books that I call my Bibles – The Quark XPress Book 4 and InDesign CS (Industrial strength techniques). They are never far from my desk. Keep up the GREAT tips. Thanks!
great tip!
…and it works with illustrator too! Cool.
I love the Southern Double-Click. Are there any other palettes that works too?