Patterns with smart objects

In a previous post, I showed how smart objects could be used in Photoshop for photo editing. Here's another good use for them. 

The fact that smart objects can be duplicated within the same .psd file means you can repeat them over and over to create patterns. I started the design below in Illustrator by creating a single triangle with bits of lettering inside it. Then I pasted that into Photoshop as a smart object and duplicated it loads of times into the pattern below (using the secret kaleidoscope recipe).

Whenever you want to try a new pattern, all you have to do is double-click on the 'vector smart object' in Photoshop and it'll take you to Illustrator where you can edit it. Once you've changed it, just save and close and it'll update the Photoshop file automatically. Lots more time to spend trying new patterns.

Adobe tutorials

www.deke.com/

What a life saver this guy is. You can find loads of Photoshop video series by him on Lynda.com but his website has lots of good free info on it for anyone who uses Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator.

Preview photographic colour variations in Photoshop: Numero Dos

I refined my 'template' for testing images in Photoshop and actually discovered I'd misinterpreted smart objects slightly. I couldn't find a way of making photos come into Photoshop at a certain size when you're using them as a smart object (usually they come in way too big). So, if you do want to set up a template, I think you'll need to do something like this:

1. Create a canvas in Photoshop of about 300mm squared.
2. Make sure you have two layers - a locked white background, and an empty layer.
3. Drop a landscape-oriented photo into the empty layer at about 50mm tall.
4. Convert your photo layer into a smart object.
5. Duplicate the smart object and set up a tightly spaced grid.
6. Once you've used the 'align' functions to get it all neat, trim any excess white space off the canvas by re-sizing it.
7. Now click on each smart object layer and apply an adjustment layer of your choice to it. Make sure the adjustment layers are clipped to the layer below (not affecting all layers).
8. You'll then have a sheet full of variations BUT, if you want to replace the content of the smart object (to see another photo with all the variations), you need to resize the photo first (to 50mm tall) and then use it as a replacement - otherwise, it'll come in too big.

The method above will allow you to use portrait-oriented photos without allowing the spacing to become an issue - as long as you make sure all photos you use to test are made 50mm tall to begin with (or whatever measurement you're going with).


I tried two more photos recently and I found the results a little repetitive so I tried something else. If you look at the first spread here, the images are mostly the same but I noticed the top right version was very different. The adjustment used on that layer is 'Black and White: High Contrast Blue Filter'. I wondered whether I could blend it with the one below - the very densely white version, which used 'Channel Mixer: Black and White with Red Filter'.  So I opened the original image and made two layers, each containing the image. I then applied the two adjustment layers to each copy of the image. I then applied a blend mode to the upper layer which happened to be 'overlay' and got the great results below.

Tip: to run quickly through blend modes, use 'shift+plus' or 'shift+minus' when the layer is selected.

Another tip: you will sometimes notice that changing the exposure much more than a few clicks left or right will create harsh effects. Instead, try duplicating the image onto another layer, then apply a blend mode to it, like 'darken', and your image will only get deeper and more dynamically lit.

The below are two sets of images, each with a test sheet, original photo and end photo.

Preview photographic colour variations in Photoshop

The link below is a video on 'smart objects' in Photoshop – skip it to 43:00 mins and you'll find a really useful way of seeing what one of your photographs might look under different colour conditions.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-julieanne-kost/episode-3/

Basically, you can set up a file in Photoshop that acts as a template into which you can 'drop' any photograph you have and see lots of variations of it. The number of variations is up to you – after all, you set them up. The way the photograph varies is also up to what adjustments you choose – but colour adjustments are the main options.

I followed the video to create a template for lots of different black and white filters on a photo of of mine. The differences can sometimes be very subtle, but you'll find some great results – like the second one in from the left (top row). It has a really good wide range of tones and not too harsh a contrast. Photoshop does offer predefined variations but they're very basic and you don't get much control over them so this is the way to go.

Footnotes in InDesign: automatic & creative

Part of the reason why I want to make a new book is that it's a reason to get to grips with what InDesign can do for large projects. I made a nice and easy start today by brushing up  on footnotes but, more specifically, how you can change the way a footnote looks.

The following notes show what I did to get the footnotes pictured at the end, so you'll get a good idea of what can be done – under completely automatic controls.

1. Set up a text box and, as it's an example, click inside the box and go to type> fill with placeholder text.

2. Drag the bottom of the text box down to make space for the footnote to appear.

3. Click somewhere in the text and go to type> insert footnote. Then two things appear – a number in the text, and the footnote itself, at the bottom of the text box.

4. Now that we have the footnote, we want to control the way it looks. Go to type> Document Footnote Options. The dialogue box that appears is one of many in InDesign and really isn't complex if you take the time to go through each feature.

5. Of the two tabs at the top, you'll be on 'Numbering and Formatting'. Under 'numbering', most of it is self-explanatory but you can type things into the prefix/suffix boxes of your own choice (I left them empty). In the two formatting panels, you'll find we can apply styles to the footnote and number – hit 'new style' for each and name them 'footnote number' and 'footnote' respectively. Don't bother setting up the rest of the settings for the  styles just yet though.

6. Underneath the paragraph style button, it says 'separator'. Delete the content of the box and use the arrow to the right to select 'tab'. This will mean that our footnote will start with the number, then jump a tab space and then begin the text.

7. In the other tab at the top, called 'layout', there are further options for formatting. You'll notice there's a Rule Above feature – ignore it! The style settings will offer the same visual options.

8. Hit OK on the footnote settings. Now before we look at the styles we've set up, we need to specify our tabs. Highlight the footnote itself, in the text box, and go to type> tabs. Type a measurement into the 'X:' bar and, if you want to, put something into the leader. You can experiment with this – I put two spaces and an em dash into it for mine.

9. Close the tabs panel. Now, making sure nothing is selected, double-click on your character style 'footnote number'. This will change the appearance of the reference inside the text. Make sure 'preview' is selected in the bottom left so you can see the effect of your settings. The more creative features come in the next step.

10. Double-click on the paragraph style that you named 'footnote'. In 'basic character formats' set up a type size of about 10, with around double the leading – 17/18pt. Then go to 'paragraph rules' and use a 'rule above' of about 10pt. This will be a bar the footnote text sits inside. You can play around with the stroke type, size, colour etc. 'Width' allows you to control how far the bar extends. You can put a '–1mm' left and right indent in, so the bar doesn't stop too close to the text.

11. Go to 'character colour' and choose a good contrasting tone. Then, for another little addition, you can go to 'underline options' and use an offset stroke as an underline. Remember 'underlines' can become more like panels if you make them fat enough.

12. Now click OK and you'll be all set to write hundreds of footnotes without ever having to manually format them. Playing with the style settings will affect them all simultaneously and you can really use the style features inventively to work more 'economically'.

I found this little video series by Michael Murphy on making books with InDesign. It covers 'book files', automation, tables of contents, indexing and more. See his personal website here: http://www.theindesigner.com/blog/

Brushes in Photoshop

Had a little play with Photoshop recently and shall share my findings!

Please click on the images for a better view. I had to, of course, try making a brush with type as well as other shapes and it actually works really well. There’s not an enormous amount of control available with brushes but to play around with all the jitter settings in the dialog box is lots of fun. A good little trick is to increase the brush size and colour ‘purity’ together – it’ll make distant shapes less colourful and nearby shapes vivid…giving a better sense of depth. These were only quick tests and I think a lot more can be done – ‘dual brush’ seems to offer a big opportunity for experiment…an airbrush used in a duo with a hard-edged one will make a feathered-edge effect, for instance, as in the last image here.

Müller-Brockmann’s Grids in InDesign

This post is partly a note-to-self but could also be handy for anyone wanting to set up grids in InDesign or understand more about how type and leading works.

Having read his book on grid systems, I wanted to try M-B’s grid set-ups and, in doing so, noticed something that’s maybe worth pointing out. The text in M-B’s grids always seems to sit very comfortably into the grid line corners, whether it’s a capital in a larger size or small body copy. In his day, typographers would always sketch out words/titles/paragraphs so there’s a difference between drawing text by hand to sit on the baseline and extend to the edge of the grid line and getting a type size on InDesign that will do the same thing (without going into decimal points). 

Also, many designers will either choose to align images with the x-height of the type (the top of the letter ‘x’ from the baseline, in other words) or to align images with the ascender line/cap height (whichever is highest). The latter is M–B’s method and ensures that the top of any images will line up with the top of any lettering that may be alongside it on the page. This is my preference also – more simple and better looking.

I got into confusion at first when setting up some grids because of the point size system. The point size is not actually the size of the lettering itself but of the metal shapes that were used in letterpress originally. This explains why there’s a mysterious little bit of leading still in on the screen when you type with 10/10 type (size 10/10 leading). If the leading value is equal to the size it means there should really be no leading – no space between the lines of text. However, because there is a tiny bit, it means you have to make lots of calculations to get the grid working if you don’t deal with it first.

So, as it’s the modern world and letterpress is but a fragment of the old, it’s time to tech-up and get rid of unwanted leading.

Say we want a column of text. There are to be 59 lines. We want 5 fields with a one-line break between each. So we take away 4 from 59 because we need them as spaces, and are left with 55 lines (11 lines per field).

We want to use Univers size 10 with 2pt of leading (12 in the InDesign tab). Remembering that point size is not type size, we need to measure the text. So write a line in Univers size 10 making sure to use caps/ascenders and descenders in the sentence (something like HPSklpgj). Then use type>create outlines. This makes the sentence an object. You can check out the height of the object (which should (?) be equal to 10 points, but it’s not) in the bar at the top. It’ll be about 3.305mm. If you then search google for ‘3.305mm in points’ you’ll get 9.368…which isn’t 10. Thus, the confusion is thwarted!

We can then make a rectangle whose length is irrelevant and whose height is 3.305mm (or convert the outlined text to a rectangle) and what we have is the corner of the grid – whose height means it will touch the top of the ascenders and the base of the descenders. The baseline will have to pass somewhere through this area for the line to sit on – this is worked out later. For now, we can duplicate the shape underneath to get a second line without leading. To add 2pt leading, go to the ‘y’ measurement for the shape below and type in ‘+2pt’ after what is already there. This should push the object down by 2 pt – leaving a 2pt gap. If you do this 59 times, you’ll get the grid height. After every 11, there’ll be a shape that signifies the space between fields – text/images can still fill it but nothing should align on it – that’s what the fields are for.

So, as it’s the more simple number, we’ll use 3.305mm as our guide. If our baselines re-occur every 3.305 our text will sit tightly with no leading (because it is the full measurement from descender to ascender). We need to add leading (2pt leading) so we type in ‘3.305mm+2pt’ in the baseline menu (under preferences) and it gives you a deeper baseline.

Now that your baseline is at the right measurement (with 2pt leading added) you can type away in Univers size ‘10’ (9.368). The leading will be 2pt but InDesign will want to make it a tiny bit more which is why you need to select 11 (rather than 12 – even though that is what we’re after) on the leading bar when ‘align to baseline’ is ticked. Making sure everything is aligned to the baseline is key though.

So now our baseline is the right measurement but will not be aligned to our grid properly. Aligning it to the grid will make sure the text sits comfortably right up to the edges of the fields. Let’s say the big list of 59 rectangles we made – with 2pt leading between – is all one object. Have it sitting 20mm from the top of the page (y measurement). Type in 20mm in the baseline menu to make it begin there. Now we need a measurement to add to that so that the baseline sits inside our rectangles and the text touches the top and bottom of them all as a result. Going back to our outline object of the text, take a measurement of the highest ascender/cap height (so the height of an ‘h’ perhaps, or capital T). I got 2.6mm. Add this to the baseline start-measurement so it’s 22.6mm and you’ll see all the text shift so that everything sits inside each rectangle. Done.

The edges of the rectangles are where images should align and so on but these can be removed once you draw a grid around them. It’s a slightly tricky process to get your head around but if you rely on making your own measurements and not on InDesign, you’ll find it’s not so technical. Remember, though, that all of your text/images and design decisions should be made before drawing up the grid so you don’t have to re-do the whole thing in order to make amendments. 

Tip: InDesign kerning

If you want to adjust the letter-spacing on something you have typed in InDesign you can use the alt key; place the cursor between the letters whose spacing you wish to adjust and, holding down the alt key, press the left arrow to delete space or the right arrow to add it.

Going to preferences>units & increments will allow you to alter the amount of space you affect with each press of the arrows. (Making the units smaller will give you more control over how much you change the spacing).

Tip: Dashes and quotation marks

Dashes
Many people, designers included, appear to have let go of a few typographic traditions and customs, probably because typing has over-taken writing as the most popular form of getting information down. One problem is that people forget the difference between a hyphen and a dash. A hyphen joins two words as a compound word and is the key next to your plus/minus key on the computer, ‘-’. 


Dashes are used to join sentence clauses and do not form compound words. They come in two kinds: an en-dash (American style) and an em-dash (British style). The en-dash is generally accepted as the norm because the longer em-dash looks old-fashioned and too similar to a hyphen (it is input with no spaces before or after it). The en-dash is slightly shorter and requires a space before and after it. Holding down alt and pressing the hyphen key will, I believe, input an en-dash. You’ll notice it’s slightly longer than a hyphen.


en-dash –
hyphen -


One thing to remember is that all typefaces are different and some, like Courier, make little/no visual distinction between a hyphen and en-dash. The cheek…




Quotation marks and possessives
One thing I’ve noticed on this blogging network is that many people are unfortunately misusing their punctuation! The prime (') has almost wiped out quotation marks (‘’). I even saw a blog whose title used a prime to suggest elision in a word and it was set in an enormous font size on display for all. To make it clear, you have quotation marks for quotes, apostrophes (a single closing quotation mark) to show possessives or indicate missing letters, and primes which are used in measurement, i.e. 6'1''. 


To input an opening quote mark with a mac computer hold alt and press the closing square bracket symbol (the one on the right of the two). (Apologies to non-mac users; you’ll have to google it to learn how). To make a closing quote mark, do the same thing but this time hold alt+shift. ’ – this can be used as an apostrophe too, so that it is it’s and not it's. If any Americans are reading (hello!), it’s the opening square bracket that provides double quote marks.


Incidentally, just hold down alt and press any of your letter keys – typographic ‘glyphs’ galore. I’m not really sure why the default keys don’t include the commonly used quote marks; it is a hassle having to hold down keys and finding the square brackets every time. Hard life eh?


These changes to typography can, of course, be made in word software and Adobe inDesign; if all else fails just check the ‘insert special character’ lists and look for the relevant option. That’s all for now!