Clipping Paths and Text Wrap in Adobe InDesign

CATEGORIES: InDesign, Tutorials | Terry White | July 07, 2006

I don’t spend a lot of time working with clipping paths anymore. Why? Because ever since InDesign started supporting the native transparency in Photoshop files, I just haven’t had a need for clipping paths. However, I realize that many of you depend on them in your workflows and I thought I would shed some light on how InDesign handles them quite nicely. Also, we can’t talk about clipping paths without talking about text wrap now can we? So let’s get to it.

STEP 1 Open an Image in Photoshop
To begin, we need an image with a Path in it. So open an image in Photoshop, preferably something that won’t take you too long to trace with the Pen tool. Forget about the woman with the long flowing hair; you’ll be disappointed. (Honestly, if you have an image with hair in it that needs to be removed from the background, you should be thinking about using it as a transparent PSD file and using the Extract Filter in Photoshop.)

PHOTO CREDIT: ©TERRY WHITE

STEP 2 Trace the Image with the Pen Tool
Once you have the image open, select the Pen tool from the Toolbox and trace the subject in your photo that you want to separate from the background. Be sure to close the path by clicking on the first point that you created with the Pen tool.

STEP 3 Name Your Path
Now bring up the Paths palette (Window>Paths) and double-click on the Work Path that you just created. You can give a nice, descriptive name so that you’ll know what it refers to once you get to InDesign.

STEP 4 Create a Second Path
We could stop here and go over to InDesign but there’s one more thing that you should know. In workflows of the past, an image could only have one clipping path. However, since InDesign supports Photoshop paths directly, you can have more than one path in your image. Click below the path you just created in the Paths palette to deselect it. Now use the Pen tool to create a second path around another subject in the photo.

STEP 5 Name Your Second Path
After tracing the second subject in your photo, double-click on the new Work Path to give it a descriptive name and then click OK.

STEP 6 Save Your Image
You can create as many paths as you have subjects in your photo and save each path with a name. The reason we’re having you do this is so that in InDesign you’ll be able to use the one file and pick and choose which subject you want to show from that photo. Of course, this could be accomplished with layers in Photoshop and turning them on and off in InDesign CS2; however, this method allows you to work with a smaller flattened file that can either be PSD, TIFF, or EPS. Save your photo as a PSD or TIFF file.

STEP 7 Open InDesign
Open or create a new InDesign document.

STEP 8 Create a Large Frame
As a good test to see just how effective your path work will be, use the Rectangle Frame tool (F) to create a large frame on the page and fill it with a color of your choice. We’re going to use a light-blue color.

STEP 9 Create a Type Frame and Enter Text
Now use the Type tool (T) and create a text frame that will go on top of the frame that we created in the previous step. Be sure not to click the Type tool on the existing colored frame because InDesign will assume that you want to put text into that frame. It’s okay to create the text frame on the pasteboard and then drag it over to position it on the colored frame. Once you have the frame you can either type or place text into it, or use the Fill with Placeholder Text command from the Type menu.

STEP 10 Create a Third Frame
Now create another frame on top of your text to contain your picture that you traced in Photoshop. Don’t worry that it covers your text. We’ll use the Text Wrap command to fix it.

STEP 11 Place Your Image
Place (File>Place) your PSD or TIFF file that you created earlier into this frame and choose Object>Fitting>Fit Content Proportionally to make it fit properly in the frame. At this point you should have a picture on top of your text, which is on top of your colored frame.

STEP 12 Choose Your First Path
Choose Clipping Path from the Object menu. By default it will be set to None for Type. Choose Photoshop Path from the pop-up menu. Your first path should pop up automatically. Make sure the Preview checkbox is turned on so that you can see the results, then click OK.

STEP 13 Wrap Text around the Image
Now bring up the Text Wrap palette from the Window menu. Click the Wrap around Object Shape option (third icon on the top of the palette) and your text should wrap around the object using the path you created. You should also note that if it doesn’t wrap perfectly, you can adjust the path here in InDesign with the Direct Selection tool (A).

STEP 14 Explore Other Options
There are a couple more cool options that you should know about. The first is that because your image has multiple paths, you can go back to the Clipping Path dialog and choose one of the other paths and, because Text Wrap is on, it will automatically show that portion of the image and wrap the text. Also, if your object was on a fairly solid background, you may be able to get away with InDesign’s Detect Edges feature in the Clipping Path options, which will allow you to knock out the background in InDesign without creating a path first!