Working with transparency » By Terry White
The following tutorial is courtesy of "Mac Design Magazine "

Everybody’s doing it (or wants to). So what are you waiting for? The water’s fine—c’mon in. Although InDesign is the only page-layout app to support transparency to date, transparency is not a new concept. You’ve been working with transparency since Photoshop 3. The only difference is that when it came to print, you flattened that transparency BEFORE bringing it into your page-layout app. While this flattened workflow of the past still works, it’s not the most convenient use of your time, especially when you have last-minute changes or want the flexibility of putting images with no background on various backgrounds in your layout. I know what you’re thinking—how much you just love creating clipping paths in Photoshop, right? Or how much fun it is to work with photos of people with hair? Put down that Pen tool and let’s take a look at transparency in InDesign CS.
STEP 1 Drop the Opacity of a Background Image

Select an image on your page with the Selection tool (V) and then slide the Opacity down to around 30% using the Transparency palette (Window>Transparency). Having an image in the background is usually more interesting and visually appealing than just the color of the paper.


STEP 2 Create a Frame Filled with White

Chances are you may want to put text on top of an image and sometimes the text may be hard to read. You could put the text on top of a white box, but that would probably stand out too much. So create a frame with the Frame tool of your choice. We’ll use the Rectangle Frame tool (F). Make this frame larger than the one that will actually contain your text. Fill it with white (choose [Paper]) from the Swatches palette (Window>Swatches).


STEP 3 Drop the Opacity of the White Frame

Select the frame you just created with the Selection tool, and in the Transparency palette, slide the Opacity slider down to around 75%.


STEP 4 Feather the White Frame

While we’re on the subject of transparency, you also have the ability to feather the edges of graphics or text. With the white frame still selected, choose Feather from the Object menu. Click the checkboxes for Feather and Preview, and then click in the Feather Width field. While your cursor is there, you can use the Up and Down Arrow keys on your keyboard to visually change the amount of feathering to your desired effect. Click OK.


STEP 5 Create a Text Frame and Fill with Text

Now, using your Type tool (T), click-and-drag out a frame within the white frame you’ve been working with and enter your text. Keep in mind that if you just click into the white frame instead of dragging, InDesign will assume that you want to turn the white frame into a text frame. While this would be okay under normal circumstances, if you do it in this case, your text will be transparent as well.




STEP 6 Place Native Photoshop and Illustrator Files

There are several ways to remove the background from an image in Photoshop. Whichever method you choose should work fine as long as you end up with your image on a transparent layer. You’ll know it’s right when you can see the checkerboard pattern where the background used to be. Save your image as a native Photoshop file (PSD) and place it onto your page in InDesign by either dragging the file from the Finder or using the Place command in the File menu. This also works for native Illustrator files, too.


STEP 7 Apply Drop Shadows to Your Text

Using the Type tool, create a large text frame across the top of your page. Then type your headline in the font of your choice making the point size nice and large. I used the Paper color (white) from the Swatches palette in this example, as it will really make the shadow stand out and create a nice contrast. Select your headline text frame with the Selection tool . Choose Drop Shadow from the Object menu. Click the Drop Shadow and the Preview checkboxes, make any changes you’d like in the dialog, and then click OK to apply.


STEP 8 Be Conscious of Stacking Order

When using transparency, the stacking order of your objects is everything! For example, if you were to place that white text frame we created earlier on top of the text, it would probably still look okay onscreen, but when it was printed it would cause the text to be rasterized as a graphic. Keep your text and vector illustrations on the topmost layer of stacked objects. Shift-click with the Selection tool to select all the text frames. Press-and-hold the Control key (PC: Right-click) and click on the text to bring up the contextual menu. Choose Bring to Front from the Arrange submenu.


STEP 9 Check Out the Transparency Flattener

Before shipping your InDesign document off to your print service provider, you’ll probably want to run it by the Flattener Preview first. Choose Flattener from the Output Preview flyout menu located under the Window menu. Choose All Affected Objects from the Highlight menu in the Flattener Preview palette. This will turn everything red that will be affected by overlapping transparent objects. You want to ensure that your text doesn’t turn red. Once you’ve checked it, you can go back to None under the Highlight pop-up menu.


STEP 10 Printing with Transparency

InDesign can print your documents containing live transparency without any action on your part. It will flatten the transparent objects in the print stream on the fly. You should, however, verify that you have the desired Transparency Flattener style chosen in the Advanced category of the Print dialog (File>Print). If your print service provider has had experience printing InDesign files, he may have his own settings that he would like you to use.


Terry White has been with Adobe Systems, Inc. for eight years. In his current role as Technical Resources Manager for North America, he leads a team of creative professional application engineers. He’s also president of MacGroup-Detroit, Michigan’s largest Macintosh User Group.