articles/Photoshop/adobecreativeuitecs4-page10
by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2009
Pushing the Design About
In the album design above (courtesy of Martin Taylor) the large monochrome image has been dropped in, as a backdrop. The four smaller pictures have then been dropped on top into pre-prepared boxes, each complete with stokes and drop shadows, in the themed colours. The adjustments you might consider are as follows, and remember this is not the last word in page design, simply an exercise, we have even made the strokes a little too large so that you can see them:
A. Shift the image to reveal the groom's right eye.
B. Push the vertical shot to the right and possibly reduce its size to nestle between the faces of the couple without obscuring them.
C. Push this image upwards to reveal more of the bride's tiara. If you decide that this is 'breaking the grid' too much then try it in the same place, but reduce the scale.
D. 'Crop' the image by simply pulling the left hand container border to the right. This does not actually crop the image, only hides it. Using the Direct Select tool would allow you to move the entire image about within the boundaries of the box.
The strokes, drop shadows, bevels, etc, can be added globally or on an individual basis by use of the Eye Dropper tool to transfer 'object properties'.
Finally, if you really like your layout you can do a 'copy all' then go to the master pages, make a new master, then 'Paste in Place' to drop the images and all their styles. Then you can use the Direct Select tool to select and then delete the contents of the boxes to leave just the skeleton outline.
This Master Page may be called up and used as often as you choose. If, for your next album, you have a different colour theme, all you do is change the Master Pages and start your new album. You may also make an entire InDesign document into a template for subsequent projects. If you have a business logo, signature or some form of advertising plate (discrete please) this may be dragged into the Library panel for drag and drop use, it could also be built into a master page.
Bear in mind that this little 'show round' only scratches the surface of what you can do and that all operations also have shortcuts so that your working speed will be even faster.
CREATIVE SUITE CS4 KEY POINTS
The benefits of 64-bit operation might be a reason to upgrade for many photographers. A need to open RAW files will drive many up from CS2.
A wedding photographer has to decide whether the additional expenditure on the other elements of the software justifies the additional expense, a cost which carries both monetary and time implications.
We remain puzzled as to the outcome of a fight between Photoshop and InDesign for album page layout and certainly cannot estimate the time it would take someone to become proficient at both Photoshop and InDesign. Making a wedding album is not as daunting as creating a whole magazine to hand off for production on a big printing press! We migrated to InDesign for the production of Professional Imagemaker in about four hours, but came from years of experience on both PageMaker and QuarkXpress.
It would be interesting to test our readership for interest in a one-day seminar on graphic design, perhaps at Convention 2010, in which the options could be demonstrated and explored, something for the future perhaps.
There are 42 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Wednesday 15th January 2025
SWPP - Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers
The Society of Photographers
Clwyd Chambers, Clwyd Street, Rhyl, Denbighshire, LL18 3LA, UK
Tel 00 44 (0) 1745 356935
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