Thursday, September 20, 2012

InDesign Document Area

Binding Spine in InDesign Binding Spine in InDesign

Images by E. BrunoIn order to explain how you can set your spine, I have to quickly show you the Page palette... Have a look at this illustration. You can see a 3 pages spread and how it looks like in the Pages palette. You can also see the ruler's origin which in the Preferences was set to Spine.

This is how I have made this spread. I have opened a new document with the Facing Pages option checked. Page 1 was already there. I then dragged the 2 pages that you see just under page 1 in the Page palette. At this point the spine was in the middle of the two pages. I selected the two page spread and then I went to the Page palette menu and I have activated the Keep Spread Together option. I then added the third page to the two pages spread to make it a three pages spread, to obtain what you see. You can add pages anywhere on the left or on the right of the original two pages spread. You can have a maximum of 10 pages in 1 spread.

View a Flash animation of the above steps.


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Masthead

Definition:

In a magazine or a newspaper you may see the masthead on the cover or front page but in a newsletter it may be on the inside and it's not the same element.

1) The masthead is that section of a newsletter, typically found on the second page (but could be on any page) that lists the name of the publisher, contact information, subscription rates, and other pertinent data.

2) Masthead is also an alternate name for the nameplate of a magazine or newspaper.

While masthead and nameplate may be used interchangeably in the newspaper business, they are two separate elements for newsletter publishers. Know your industry to know which term to use. Then again, if you know what each one contains and where it is placed it won't matter what other people call it, as long as you know whether you're creating the fancy title on the front of a publication or the publication's identification panel on some other page.

Consider the masthead a standing element in your publication. Except for changes to the names of contributors to each issue and the date/volume number, most information remains the same from issue to issue. You can place the masthead anywhere you want in your publication but it is typically found on the second page or last page of a newsletter or somewhere in the first several pages of a magazine. Be consistent in placement as much as possible. Because it's not an article, a smaller font is common. The masthead may be framed or set inside a tinted box. The masthead may contain: Logo or perhaps a smaller version of the newsletter nameplate. Name of the publisher, editors, contributors, designers, and other staff responsible for creating the newsletter. Address, phone number, and other contact information for the publication. Date and volume number (may also be found as part of the nameplate) Subscription information, if applicable, or other details on how to obtain copies of the newsletter or how to get off the mailing list. Ad rates (if advertising is accepted) or contact information for the ad department. Information on how to submit material for the newsletter (if outside contributions are accepted). Colophon-like details such as the fonts and software used in the publication. Copyright and Legal notices as may be required by your local government or jurisdiction (such as postal regulations for some types of publications). If the newsletter publisher/editor/author is all one person and the publication doesn't seek advertisers, contributors, or paid subscriptions (such as promotional or marketing newsletter for a small business) you can skip the masthead altogether.

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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

PPI - Display Resolution

PPI (pixels per inch) is how a monitor displays an image. How an image looks on screen is determined by the resolution of the monitor — the number of pixels it can display in a given area. PPI and SPI are frequently used interchangeably as a measure of image resolution, as most Adobe Photoshop users will know.

Although Real World Scanning and Halftones and some other sources make a distinct separation between samples and pixels, in practice it is probably not reasonable to expect most users to trade in one term for the other. However, for the purposes of this article, for the purists, and for the benefit of the curious, PPI does differ from other terms of resolution. It may also be the failure to differentiate the terms that leads to the greatest confusion over how an image looks on screen and how it looks when printed.

How SPI, PPI, DPI, and LPI relate
PPI is a function of your monitor. A pixel or "picture element" is a specific x,y coordinate (dot) on your screen. A high-resolution setting displays more pixels per inch. In practical terms, the same picture on a low resolution monitor looks larger than it does on a higher resolution monitor because the pixels are spread out over a larger area.

One of the biggest challenges new (and even seasoned) desktop publishers face is reconciling image display size to the size of the printed image. Throw in resampling and resizing and it really gets confusing. Here's a little exercise I performed and the results. I freely admit that it confuses the heck out of me too but at least you know you're not alone. With practice and patience you'll be able to discern a pattern and won't be quite so surprised when the image you see on screen prints at a radically different size some of the time.

The following exercise refers to the illustration in the sidebar: Scanned a 1" x 1" (physical size of the photograph) image at 300 SPI Downsampled the 300 SPI image to 96 SPI at 1" x 1" (96px x 96px) Downsampled the 300 SPI image to 96 SPI at 3" x 3" (300px x 300px)

The first thing you might notice is the difference in size of the images. Why do image one and two appear so different in physical size when I only changed the resolution? Because the monitor displays in pixels and 300 pixels per inch takes up more screen space than 96 pixels per inch. (And they would take up differing amounts of screen real estate if your monitor is set to 640 x 480 or 800 x 600, etc.) So what happened with image 3? It's only 96 SPI but its physical size is 3" x 3" (300 pixels square) so it displays at the larger size.

So, do you want to guess what the printed images will look like? The first two (large 300 SPI and small 96 SPI) printed at the same 1" x 1" size. (The 300 SPI image looked better though). The large 96 SPI image with a physical size of 3" x 3" printed at 3" square.

As you can see, how it looks on screen can be quite different than how it prints. Check the actual dimensions, as well as resolution of your image, to know how it will print.

In practice, SPI and PPI are often used interchangeably. DPI is frequently used in place of one or both terms. However, even if you call it DPI, remember that each dot or "unit of measure" behaves differently depending on whether it is a scanner (or scanned image), a monitor (or on-screen image), or a printer (or printed image).

Next > DPI: Printer Resolution

Measurements Systems > Measuring Resolution > PPI: Display Resolution


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InDesign Character Styles

Use Character Style Sheets to Save TimeUse Character Style Sheets to Save Time Use Character Style Sheets to Save Time

Illustration by J. Bear; licensed to About.comCharacter Style Sheets can be real time savers for designers especially in the creation of long or multi-page documents. Character Style Sheets are simply recorded format that you can then use in your design at will.

Consistency is one of the principles that designers must follow. Character Sheets help the designer so he doesn't have to apply manually the same type of formatting over and over again throughout the document.

Let me give you an example. You are designing a magazine promoting a certain item. You want to have all of your titles with a certain font, a certain size and a certain colour. You can record all of this information in a Character Style Sheet and then apply them to each title with a click.

Now, let's say that you decide that the titles are too small and they all have to be made 4 points bigger. Well, you just go to your Character Sheet and modify the size of your font there and all of the parts of text with that Character Style Sheet will change in one go. The same principle works in using Paragraph Style Sheets, but I will take those up in another article. Isn't that useful? So how do you set these Character Sheets in InDesign? This tutorial takes you step-by-step through the basic process. This page Use Character Style Sheets to Save Time Create a New Character Style Set the Character Style Options Change the Character Style Options for Quick Changes Throughout

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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Create a Light Box for Your Digital Photography

If your needs are basic or you'd rather spend your money on memory cards and not additional equipment you'll only use now and then, whip up a decent light box using stuff you may already have around the house.

Cheap light box for photography

Image ? J. Bear; licensed to About.com


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