When InDesign Ignores Your Leading Values

We’ve received two emails this week regarding leading — or, more specifically, InDesign apparently ignoring or changing the leading values of paragraphs.

For example, G. wrote:

…The problem arises when we copy and then paste a text frame into a new document — some of the text blocks (not all) change their leading. But this is the thing: when highlighted, the text blocks display exactly the same leading as the original… same font, size, leading — but on the page they look like the space between the lines has been doubled… what’s going on!?

As Insp. Poirot would say, “Ah, we must use the little gray cells, I think.” (I always like to think of David Suchet at times like these) The clue to this mystery is that the leading value (what’s listed in the Control panel) doesn’t match the reality on the page. This can happen for at least two reasons. (I can actually only think of two right now, but I’m hedging my bets by saying “at least”.)

* Vertical Justification. The first instance in which InDesign can ignore leading is when the Align pop-up menu in the Vertical Justification section of the Text Frame Options dialog box (Command/Ctrl-B) is set to Justify. Vertical justification typically overrides your leading values. You can return to normal leading values by increasing the Paragraph Spacing Limit in the same area, which lets InDesign add space between paragraphs instead of between each line.
* Align to Grid. InDesign also throws your leading values out the window when the paragraphs have Align to Baseline Grid turned on (in the Control panel or the Paragraph panel). Align to Baseline Grid is a powerful force of nature, but as we have said in the past, it is not to be used lightly or by the faint of heart. This is the Number One source of “what the heck is InDesign doing to me now!?” comments by users worldwide, I’m convinced. When align to baseline grid is on, your leading is off. Period. Bye-bye leading values. It’s “snap to the grid or talk to the hand” time. The grid can, of course, be managed in the Grids pane of the Preferences dialog box, or the Baseline Options tab of the Text Frames Options dialog box.

Now here’s the problem: Sometimes align to grid is turned on for a paragraph style (say, for instance, the Basic Paragraph Style, if someone has been so foolish as to edit that style definition) in one document, but not in another. In that case, when someone copies text from document A to document B, the leading goes haywire!

Why Won’t My Text Move Up?

Here’s a bonus corollary to the leading value issue. A prominent and bright industry presenter asked me recently why some text would simply not move any further up on the page. He sent me the file, and it was true: You could drag the text frame all the way to the top of the page, but the first line of text — a headline — would not move any higher than about 2 inches from the top of the page. My little gray cells were baffling. But then it came to me: Yes! Align to baseline grid. The fiend. The menace. Yes, it was true, when I turned That Feature off, the text could move anywhere.

Why was it stopping so low on the page? Because the Start field of the Baseline Grid was set to 14p! The Start field determines where the first baseline grid appears. And if something is locked to one of those infernal baseline grids, then it ain’t moving higher!
Tags: adobe, indesign

Creating a "Light Sabre" in Photoshop

Create the object you wish to make the light sabre. Use the Pen tool to create a simple straight path. This will provide the structure for the "light" ...

Now, set a soft-edged brush to the appropriate size to be the thickness you need for the sabre.

Now, you'll use the Stroke Path command to paint the sabre. The Stroke Path command allows you to create a paint stroke (using the current settings for your painting tools) that follows any path.

Start a new layer. When you stroke a path, the color values appear on the active layer. Make sure the layer you want is active before beginning.

1. Select the path in the Paths palette (Cmd/click or Ctrl/click).
2. Click the Stroke Path button at the bottom of the Paths palette. Each click of the Stroke Path button builds up the opacity of the stroke and in some cases makes it look thicker.

To stroke a path and specify options:

1. Select the path in the Paths palette.
2. Select the painting or editing tool you want to use to stroke the path.
3. Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the Stroke Path button at the bottom of the Paths palette. (Or, Choose Stroke Path from the Paths palette menu.)

There's the sabre.

To create the aura surrounding the sabre, duplicate the layer. Now select the bottom most sabre

Ctrl/click (Mac: Cmd/click) the layer to select the sabre
Choose: Select > Modify > Expand Selection
... and expand it to approximate the amount of aura you desire.

Fill the new, thicker, sabre with the desired aura color.
Click Okay.

Drop the selection and choose: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

Adjust the slider until the aura is as you wish.

Presto... Light Sabre

And, may the force be with you.

Add Drama to your Photos with Motion Blurs

The Motion Blur Filter

Selection 1 Preparation:
Using Motion Blur effectively takes a little preparation. Used straight on an image, it creates a loss of detail, or merely replicates the effect of camera shake. In this image, we want to preserve detail while creating a feeling of rapid motion.

2 Selection:
To start, make a feathered selection of the rear half of the girl. A Feather setting of about 6 pixels should be sufficient for a lowresolution shot, but you need to use higher values for high-resolution images.

Finish a "quick and dirty" selection -- the blur effect means that accuracy isn't vital -- then press
Ctrl/Cmd + J to copy and paste it to a new layer.
Call the new layer "copied selection."

Selection Lifted

3 Now Blur Keep the copied selection layer active and go to
Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Set the angle to 0 degrees and the distance to 90 pixels.

Motion Blur

Make sure the Move tool is selected, then press the right arrow key on the keyboard about 12 times
to move the selection to the right.
This gives the impression that the girl is leaving a blur of movement in her wake.

For a stronger effect, merely duplicate the copied selection layer.

Duplicate the layer

TIP Blurring with Blend Modes

After duplicating the copied selection layer, try changing the blend mode of the top version to Lighten.
This produces an almost ghostly effect.

Here are the results

Creating an Animated Volume Meter

Part One: Creating the Volume Meter

Create a 320*240 composition.

Import three solids: red, yellow, and green, each the size of 50*70 and arrange them as a volume meter:

Now we need to give it the look of real volume meter. Let's pre-compose the three solids, by selecting them, and pressing Ctrl+Alt+C and choose the option “move all attributes into the new composition” and name it volume meter.
Import a new solid the size of the composition and lay it over our new pre-composition.

On this new solid we’ll apply the grid effect, from the Render group. Give the Border the value 4, and the corner the value 226, 128, so there are no vertical lines over our volume meter.

Change the track matte of the volume meter layer to "Alpha inverted matte" and you'll get something like this:

Now again, precompose the two Layers, let's name them volume meter (again) and apply the Glow Effect from the Stylize group, and we have our volume meter.

Part two: let it move!

We need this volume meter to respond to music, lets import a sound file, drag it to time line, and then right click it.

From keyframe assistant choose "convert Audio to keyframes" and you'll have a new layer called "Audio Amplitude". Click the small triangle on the next to the layer, choose effects, then click the triangle next to "both channels" you'll see a stop watch next to the word "slider". keep it opened, because we'll need it soon.

On the volume meter layer, apply the Linear wipe effect from the transition group, make the wipe angle 180.

Alt click the stop watch of the "transition complete" and drag the pick whip from transition complete to the slider in the Audio Amplitude Layer:

You'll notice that this is not the result you wanted as the red area is moving slowly and in the opposite direction.

Let's correct this by going to the transition complete, where we see the following expression written:

thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")

Press the expression -so you can edit it- and at the end of it write *-2+100, so our new expression will be:

thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")*-2+100

If you don't care to know what this addition did, it's ok but if you do, here's what happened:

When we gave a transition angle of 180, we meant that we wanted the transition to be from up to down, then we linked it to the audio keyframes. The problem with those keyframes is that when there is no sound, they have the value of zero, and they have greater value when the sound is louder. So, by adding 100 to the transition, it makes the transition has a 100% value when there is no sound, by multiplying it with a minus number, it moves. Let's say that the music keyframe has the value of three, the result of the transition will be: 3*-2+100=94.

Why -2 and not -1? Because the differences between keyframes values are very small, so we have to "amplify" these differences by multiplying them.. you can try other numbers, but the result will be very extreme and not realistic.

Part three: 3d it...

Our job is technically done, but we still can add some fun to our composition.

Create a new composition, and drag comp1 to it. Duplicate it three times, so we have four copies of it. Name the layers: front, back, left right, and turn them into 3d layers.

Give the four layers the following transform values:

front: change the y position to 95
back: change the z position to 50, change the y position to 95
right: give the y rotation a value of 90 degrees and the x position the value of 185, change the y position to95.
left: give the y rotation a value of 90 degrees and the x position the value of 135,change the y position to 95.
now add a new layer, make it 3D layer. give it the following values: position values: 170,203,0

Add a new spot light, with the option cast shadow turned on. from the material option of each layer, activate the cast shadow option.

Add a new camera, and add the following expression to the position property of the camera: [Math.sin(time)*z,y,Math.cos(time)*z]

where z is the zoom value of the camera, and y is y position of the targeted layers, in our case the expression goes like this:

[Math.sin(time)*507,120,Math.cos(time)*507]

You'll notice that the camera is now moving in a circle around our volume meter.

Top 25 InDesign Tips

25. Keyboard shortcuts for applying styles can only be composed of a modifier key (Cmd/Ctrl, Opt/Alt, etc.) plus a number from the numeric keypad.
Sandee Cohen, Supercharged Style Sheets

24. If Caps Lock is activated when you insert placeholder text, a different passage of Latin will be used.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

23. InDesign will automatically update a linked image after it has been edited using Edit Original within InDesign.
David Blatner, Making The Most of The Suite

22. Cmd-Option-C (Ctrl-Alt-C) is the keyboard shortcut for fitting a frame to content.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

21. Tables can be nested and table cells can be merged or divided in many combinations.
Diane Burns, Make Tables Work For You

20. Press “w” to enter Preview mode, which displays the document as it would be printed.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

19. Placed TIFF and PSD images do not preserve vectors; EPS and PDF do.
David Blatner, Making The Most of The Suite

18. You can drag and drop files from the Finder/Windows desktop or windows to the Book palette.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

17. Guides cannot be duplicated by Option-dragging, but can be duplicated with Edit –> Duplicate or Edit –> Step and Repeat.
Pariah Burke, Where Text Meets Graphics

16. It’s easier to work with Book files from the Book palette than by opening the file itself.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

15. Multiple undos can undo actions executed before a subsequent save.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

14. The Autocorrect preferences in InDesign allows you to customize what InDesign flags for correction.
Pariah Burke, Cool Text Techniques

13. Hold Shift while selecting a print, document or PDF preset (from their respective menu items in the File menu) to execute the preset without dialog boxes.
David Blatner & Sandee Cohen, Essential Tips & Tricks

12. Use the Absolute Page Numbering preference to work with a multi-section InDesign document in terms of absolute page numbers.
Sandee Cohen, Fundamentals of Document Construction

11. The Text Wrap palette can accept negative values, creating text overlap of a specific value.
Pariah Burke, Where Text Meets Graphics

10. In long documents, the more master pages you use the better.
Sandee Cohen, Fundamentals of Document Construction

9. Press Cmd/Ctrl-Enter to open Quick Apply, where you can type any letters in a style’s name to apply that style to text or objects.
Sandee Cohen, Supercharged Style Sheets

8. The Underline Options in the Character palette flyout menu allows for customized underline styles.
Pariah Burke, Cool Text Techniques

7. Book Page Numbering Options can set chapters to always begin on odd (right-facing) pages.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

6. All tables are anchored inside a text frame.
Diane Burns, Make Tables Work For You

5. Distilling PDFs through Adobe Acrobat Distiller will flatten transparencies.
Claudia McCue, Fast & Sure, The PDF Workflow

4. When creating a Table of Contents, “Create PDF Bookmarks” will hyperlink TOC entries to corresponding pages. The hyperlinks do not show up in InDesign, but will when the file is exported as a PDF.
Robin Williams, Long Document Techniques

3. The TIFF file format can hold any kind of data the PSD file format can, but it is non-proprietary and can also be compressed for smaller file sizes.
David Blatner, Making The Most of The Suite

2. PDF/X-1a is the best PDF format to get quality output for print.
Claudia McCue, Fast & Sure: The PDF Workflow

1. Preflight early and often, using InDesign’s Transparency Preview and Flattener Previews as well as Acrobat 7 Professional’s Print Production tools.
Claudia McCue, Fast & Sure: The PDF Workflow

Courtesy of quarkvsindesign.com

Achieve photorealism with Gradient Mesh

To create a Gradient Mesh object, choose the Mesh tool from the Toolbox and click any vector path in your document. You don’t draw Gradient Mesh objects from scratch in Illustrator; you convert existing vector shapes to mesh objects. Each click with the Mesh tool adds additional mesh points to the mesh object. You’ll also notice that as you add mesh points to an object, the paths that connect the mesh points match the contours of the object.

In this example of using a circle, notice how the mesh points that are added create curved paths, not straight ones.

Once you have mesh points defined, you can switch to the Direct Selection tool and select each individual mesh point to adjust its position and its direction handles.


Editing a mesh point is no different than editing an anchor point.

With a mesh point selected, you can choose a color from the Control, Swatches, or Color palette to define the color for that point. Each mesh point can contain only one color. Each mesh point’s direction handles and paths define how its color blends with other colors from other mesh points.


The paths that connect the mesh points define how colors blend and the shapes and contours of the gradient.

As needed, you can switch back to the Mesh tool and click to add additional mesh points.

You can also create a gradient mesh from an existing vector object. With the object selected, choose Object > Create Gradient Mesh. You can then choose how many rows or columns you want in the mesh, and if the object is filled with a color, you can specify a highlight towards the center or the edge of the object. Once the gradient mesh is created, you can continue to tweak it using the methods mentioned previously.

Note: If you converted a path to a mesh object and then want to get the path back, you can select the mesh object and use the Offset Path function with a setting of 0. This action creates a new path that you can edit and color as you wish.

Courtesy of the Adobe Blog!

Dreamweaver Tutorial to open new windows using 'Open Browser Window' Behavior

To create a pop-up window for any link, create the link (either text / image) using '#', select it and then open the Behaviors panel (Shift+F3).

Click the Add (+) button and select 'Open Browser Window' from the Actions pop-up menu.

Select the URL to be opened and set the window properties, say width, height, attributes (Navigation toolbar, Location toolbar, Status bar, Menu bar, Scrollbars as needed, Resize handles) and a name.

To edit a pop-up window, select the link and then double-click the 'Open Browser Window' in the Actions column of the Behaviors panel to make the necessary changes.

Save and test your file in a web browser. That's is how to create pop-up windows using Dreamweaver Behaviours.

Creating a Custom Drop Shadow

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THIS IS A SIMPLE WALK-THROUGH for producing drop shadows by hand. In some cases you'll want to know and understand this process because you'll need a shadow that does not "drop" from the entire object, or one that you can manipulate as a separate object rather than part of the layer as in the Drop-Shadow layer effect.

This is an object, rastered on its own layer.

The first thing we'll do is duplicate that object to another new layer.
* Drag the layer to the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the layers palette, or,
* Use the "Float" command: Command/J, or Control/J for Windows.

Next: Select the layer original object layer
* Command/click the layer thumbnail (Control/Click for Windows)

Now your object is selected on the bottom layer.
Tap the letter D to change colors to default
Tap Option/Delete (Alt/Delete for Windows) to fill the object
(Racing ants, the dotted line around the object signifies it is selected)

In this capture, you'll see the object is now filled with the foreground color (Black) even though you can't see it because it's behind (or beneath) the White object on the next layer.

Tap Command/D (Control/D) to drop any selections
Choose: Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur
and in the resulting dialog box, set the amount of blur to result in the desired amount of shadow.

Here, we've created the blur than selected the Move tool (Tap V) to "nudge" the shadow to its new location. (In this example, we went 12 pixels right, and 12 pixels down. Your own project may be different. )

Thanks to the guys here http://www.photoshop911.com/tricks/drop_shadows/index.html