By: Michael Murphy
May 3 2007 • 1:03 PM
The InDesigner - Episode 40: Object Layer Options
It’s time to get back to the original mission of the videocast — real-world examples of InDesign in action to help you work better, smarter and faster. In this episode, I take a look at a feature that debuted in CS2: Object Layer Options. Not only does InDesign understand the native Photoshop format, it also understands Photoshop’s layers and Layer Comps. Using one layered image from the opening spread of a magazine feature, I turn its layers into separate backgrounds, headers and pieces of spot art throughout the rest of the layout.
Download it now or watch it in your browser:
The InDesigner - Episode 40 (16:25 mins. | 26.9 MB)
Another great show Michael.
Question, Does InDesign CS 3 respect Photoshops layer blending modes?
For example, I might have an image of a parcel wrapped in brown paper on a transparent background. I have also built a cast shadow with it’s blending mode set to multiply.
Unless I am mistaken, InDesign does not respect the blending modes of individual Photoshop layers.
Obviously, I can do a work around, by placing the image twice, one showing the package only with a blending mode of normal and another showing the shadow only with a blending mode of multiply. Group the two placed images and I’m good to go.
Thanks in advance,
Bill Bowman
Hi Bill, Michael is travelling and might not be able to answer right away.
There is nothing new in CS3 regarding support for Photoshop’s blending modes when they interact with InDesign content. PSD files come in composited to ID content as color plus alpha mode … that is, the transparency is supported, but the parts of PSD layer content that “hang off into transparency” (that is, the parts not overlaying other PSD layer pixels underneath) will composite with underlying ID content as if in Normal mode, despite whatever blend mode was specified for that layer in Photoshop.
I’ve heard an Adobe engineer say this was because Photoshop uses an entirely different imaging model than the other basic apps (InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat). It would be possible for them to try and combine the different imaging modes but the trade-offs are too great.
This is a great feature, especially using layer comps. You want to make sure that you select InDesign’s visibility overrides and if you go back and add or delete layers it can cause problems with updating the images. It can also take a while when working with big images, especially if you have the show preview selected.
Good point Jerome, and it’s worth noting that that choice is now the default in CS3. It makes much more sense. Why would you want to lose the overrides when updating the file?
Just one of the small improvements in behavior in CS3.
Yes, I hadn’t known that Maintain Layer Visibility Overrides was the new default in CS3 until Michael pointed it out in his video.
I have to admit…I didn’t watch it so I didn’t know he pointed it out. Another “brownie point” for Michael.
I could claim that brownie point if I hadn’t ORIGINALLY heard it from Adobe’s Noha Edell at the last NY InDesign User Group meeting. See…my honesty trumps the glory hound within me. :)
Okay…one brownie point for Noha!
Does InDesign CS3 correct the problem of visibility overrides from Illustrator? ?Everytime I make a small change to an Illustrator file (saved as a layered PDF) InDesign tells me, “the layers have changed in the original document” and it reverts to the layers as saved in the PDF. (visibility overrides is not working)
Also, how do I tell InDesign to open PDFs in Illustrator and not Acrobat when I select “edit original.”
Thanks all. You may have answered both of these questions in the podcast. I haven’t had time to listen yet.
Chad,
I think that’s fixed in InDesign CS3. Furthermore, you can place layered AI files into CS3, you don’t have to save as PDF.
If I understand Chad’s question correctly, he’s referring to the the alert dialog I mentioned at the end of the episode, which you also get with Photoshop files, that appears when layers in the placed file have been added, deleted, re-arranged (in the stacking order), or re-named, InDesign will throw out all Object Layer visibility settings in the document in which that image is placed. That behavior is the same in CS3. Chad’s reference to “a small change to an Illustrator file” makes me think that one of those changes is to the layer structure of the Illustrator file. Small changes (adding, deleting, moving or re-sizing an object, changing a color, etc.) do not cause the Object Layer settings for the file to be discarded.
Thanks Steve for the heads up on CS3.
Michael,
No, unfortunately I didn’t make any layer changes. I simply opened the pdf in Illustrator, created a box and deleted the box (just so I could save the file again). I went back to InDesign updated the links and that’s when I get the “layers have changed” message. Should I be saving the PDF in a certain version or checking a certain option. I even tried creating a new InDesign document with a new test Illustrator PDF and I encountered the same problem.
I should be getting CS3 in a month, so hopefully this problem is fixed when using .ai format.
From the tests I conducted today, you’ll be happy with CS3’s handling of this. It was only under the circumstances I mentioned above that I ran into the updating issue.
I have a question regarding reducing the size of a PSD that’s been placed in InDesign. In this videocast you do this but I’ve been under the impression that in the production stage art should always be 100% of the size it will print.
Typically, what you don’t want to do is go above 100% on any placed PSD image, because your effective resolution goes down. But reducing the size of the image, in most cases, is no problem. The line screen of your output is going to be applied document-wide.
Therefore, even if my full-sized image is 300 pixels per inch, and a half-size version on the page is, effectively, 600 pixels per inch…when they’re output with a 133- or 150-line screen, it all evens out.
There are a couple of things to watch out for, however, that have nothing to do with image quality, but with the specifics of the image.
For instance, if you have an image with a lot of texture, or painterly effects, they’re going to “tighten up” as the image gets smaller (much as a stroke in a placed image would effectively get “thinner” as you reduce that image), so the level of detail in something like a film grain or brush stroke texture will be reduced in a scaled-down version of that image in your layout. Again…it’s not a resolution-specific thing, it’s more about the nature of the image.
We really miss your vodcast, I know you are probably very busy but any idea when will see the next episode.
thanks.
Thanks, Cesar — That’s great to hear. I have been very busy leading up to, and catching up after, the NY InDesign Conference…but my new episode is in the works. It should be up by the end of the week.
I was wondering if CS3 had fixed the updating problems with Object Layer Options?
The problem I’m referring to is when I send it off to the printer after packaging the file, it has to be updated.
When it updates, Object Layering doesn’t remember the options–from CS2. So the printer has to ask me what object layer options I had used for that layer.
Did CS3 fix that? Or is there another work-around for this in CS2? Can Markzware Flightcheck possibly resolve this?
Bert — In CS3, the default setting for “When Updating Link:” in the Object Layer Options dialog box has been changed to “Keep Layer Visibility Overrides.” In CS2, it was “Use Photoshop’s Layer Visibility.”
That probably caused the problem when you packaged a job for output with CS2. If you hadn’t specifically changed that preference for each image where Object Layer Options are used, it would default to the current state of the Photoshop file. Now, by default, that’s not the case.
The only instance I’ve encountered where InDesign throws out your Object Layer Option settings is if the actual layer structure of the Photoshop file changes. InDesign can’t reconcile the missing (or added) layers, so it reverts the placed file to its new Photoshop state.
What I want is a preference setting to keep “Use PDF’s layer Visibility” when updating links turned on. If I add layers or turn some off in the AI file, Indesign won’t update with the new layers.