Sep. 23, 2008
Adobe have launched on their website the next fantastic installment of the Creative Suite… CS4 is born!
Anyone wanting to see the latest and greatest Adobe has to offer check out their website http://www.adobe.com/ . You can see all the CS4 products, their new features and sale price. Adobe is also now accepting preorders for CS4 products.
If you would like to take a close look at InDesign CS4’s new features list check out the feature list page on Adobe’s website HERE.
Anyone wanting to get a kick start on their CS4 training, video tutorials on InDesign CS4 and other Creative Suite 4 products have already been posted around the web check out these links:
- Adobe TV
Over the coming days we will take a close look at InDesign CS4, I will review my favourite new features and post my own video tutorials. Keep an eye out for them.
Posted by Neil Oliver in CS4 New Features, News | No Comments
Sep. 23, 2008
Take your swatches back into InDesign
In the last post we looked at how to get your swatches from InDesign into Illustrator or Photoshop, now let’s look at importing swatches from Illustrator or Photoshop back into InDesign. As in the last post, the end result we are looking for is to exchange swatches throughout the creative suite as a .ASE file. If you haven’t yet looked at the last post, you might want to do so before reading on.
The first thing you need to do is export your swatches from either Illustrator or Photoshop. Let’s take a look at Illustrator first. In Illustrator go to your swatches panel and select the swatches you would like to export. To select all swatches in the list, select the first swatch hold “Shift” on the keyboard and then click on the last swatch in the list. To select swatches randomly hold “Command” (Mac) or “Control” (PC) and select each swatch separately. Once selected go to the swatches panel flyout menu, located at the top right hand side of the panel and choose “Save Swatch Library as ASE…”. A new dialogue will appear asking you where you want to save the .ASE, navigate to your preferred location, give the .ASE file an appropriate name and then choose “Save”. When you choose “Save” you will get a warning dialogue telling you that you can’t save Gradients, Patterns or Tints in your .ASE file as they are not exchangeable items, choose “OK” to finish.
Before we import these swatches in InDesign let’s go through the same process in Photoshop. From the swatches panel in Photoshop you can’t select the flyout menu and choose “Save Swatches for Exchange…”. A new dialogue will appear asking you where you want to save the .ASE file, navigate to your preferred location, give the .ASE file an appropriate name and then choose “Save”. When saved the .ASE thumbnails differ slightly between InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop however they are the same format (see image below).
Ok all the hard work is done - let’s load these swatches in InDesign. Because the swatches we exported from Illustrator and Photoshop are now in the .ASE format we can load them exactly the same way in InDesign. In InDesign go to your swatches panel flyout menu, located at the top right hand side of the panel. From the menu that appears choose “Load Swatches…”. Navigate to your .ASE file accordingly in the dialogue that appears and choose “Open”. Your swatches will now appear at the bottom of the swatches panel list.
Video Instructions (all videos are quicktime movies): 1. Click on the “CLICK HERE TO WATCH TUTORIAL” hyperlink, a new window appears, once the video has downloaded completely (speed varies depending on internet connection) the video will commence. 2. Right click on the “CLICK HERE TO WATCH TUTORIAL” hyperlink and choose “DOWNLOAD LINKED FILE AS” to save the video to your computer. Once downloaded open the .mov file in Quicktime to watch. 3. Subscribe to the creativementor.com.au now Podcast through iTunes.
Posted by Neil Oliver in Swatches | 1 Comment
Sep. 22, 2008
There’s no need to recreate your InDesign swatches in Photoshop or Illustrator, just take them with you.
Commonly people tend to recreate their InDesign swatches when working in Illustrator and Photoshop. Did you know you can take them with you? This post will bring your attention to the best way to take your swatches from InDesign to Illustrator or Photoshop.
The way this is done is through the Adobe Swatch Exchange - this is Adobe’s way of letting you share your swatches between the creative suite applications. InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop all allow you to export your selected swatches to the Adobe Swatch Exchange format, commonly know as a .ASE file. Image below shows you what an InDesign .ASE file look like.
There is no restriction to the colour type of the swatch when exporting, ie CMYK, RGB or Spot/PMS. However there are a couple of swatch types which aren’t compatible when exporting your swatches; these are Gradients, Tints and Mixed Inks. Hopefully soon Adobe will allow these swatch types to export as well. See image below for the warning dialogue that appears if you happen to select an incompatible Gradient, Tint or Mixed Ink swatch.
Besides the advantage of not having to recreate your swatches throughout the creative suite applications, you can also save the .ASE file to the job folder as a permanent untouched reference or even email the .ASE file to other people working on the same job.
So let’s take a look a how we save our swatches. In InDesign go to your swatches panel and select the swatches you would like to export. To select all swatches in the list, select the first swatch, hold “Shift” on the keyboard and then click on the last swatch in the list. To select swatches randomly hold “Command” (Mac) or “Control” (PC) and select each swatch separately. Once all your swatches are selected go to the Swatch panel flyout menu, located at the top right hand side of the panel. From the menu that appears choose “Save Swatches…”. This will open a new dialogue that asks you where you want to save your .ASE file that holds all your swatches. Choose the location you want to save your .ASE file and name it accordingly, once complete choose “Save” and you’re done.
Now let’s take a look at how we load our saved swatches in Illustrator and Photoshop. The idea is simple really, both Illustrator and Photoshop each have their own swatches panel. In both Illustrator and Photoshop the swatches panels are found the same way - go to the “Window” menu and choose “Swatches”, the swatches panel will now appear on your screen. Here is where Illustrator and Photoshop differ when importing swatches from InDesign now in the .ASE format. In Illustrator go to the swatches panel flyout menu, located at the top right hand side of the panel, and choose “Open Swatch Library”. Now another menu appears in which you need to choose “Other Library…”. A new dialogue will appear asking you where your .ASE file is located, navigate to your saved .ASE file and the choose “Open”. Now a new swatches panel appears with all the the swatches you previously saved from InDesign. One last thing whilst we are in Illustrator, if you want to view your swatches in a list like view as in InDesign go up to the flyout menu and choose “Small List View”.
Ok, now lets import these same swatches into Photoshop. To bring up the swatches panel go to the “Window” menu and choose “Swatches”. Now go to the flyout menu and choose “Load Swatches…”. Navigate to the relevant .ASE file and choose “Load”. The loaded swatches will now appear at the end of the swatches list. if you want to view your swatches in a list like view go up to the flyout menu and choose “Small List”.
Video Instructions (all videos are quicktime movies): 1. Click on the “CLICK HERE TO WATCH TUTORIAL” hyperlink, a new window appears, once the video has downloaded completely (speed varies depending on internet connection) the video will commence. 2. Right click on the “CLICK HERE TO WATCH TUTORIAL” hyperlink and choose “DOWNLOAD LINKED FILE AS” to save the video to your computer. Once downloaded open the .mov file in Quicktime to watch. 3. Subscribe to the creativementor.com.au now Podcast through iTunes.
Posted by Neil Oliver in Swatches | No Comments
Sep. 17, 2008
Attention Sydneysiders!
The next InDesign User Group meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, Oct 1, 2008. Anyone who hasn’t been to one of these meetings is missing out. It is a perfect opportunity to learn new things about InDesign from leading industry experts, as well as bounce all your questions off them. Check out all the details relating to the Sydney chapter at indesignusergroup.com . You do need to sign up and register (for free) via the InDesign User Group website to record yourself in attendance for the event. Seating is limited so register now!
In this upcoming meeting, the folks from Adobe are going to unwrap Adobe Creative Suite 4. Mike McHugh, Creative Systems Engineer for Adobe Systems will be presenting an exciting, fast-paced session on Adobe’s latest line-up of their flagship Creative Suite products. Come and be one of the first to see CS4 in action.
Posted by Neil Oliver in News | No Comments
Sep. 15, 2008
Adobe has announced that they will be launching CS4 on Wednesday 24th of September. If you would like to be a part of the launch via a special web broadcast on the 23rd of September make sure you register with Adobe, http://adobe.istreamplanet.com/.
Check back here on the 24th for all the latest info regarding InDesign CS4.
