when someone mentions masking
indesign is not the tool that you would
first think of
it's more photoshop and an illustrator
but actually
in indesign there's also quite a lot of
masking techniques you can do
even just simply by working with frames
which is the most common thing you would
do in indesign is in a way
a masking technique so let me walk you
through all of these things that you can
do
to show and hide details and to work
with these techniques in a creative way
in adobe indesign
first of all when you work with frames
you need to remember that
the frame is your container and the
image inside it is the content and they
work together but
also independently in a way so you can
see here on the right side i have my
frame and inside
the image and i can drag any of the
sides in
to crop the image so let's say if i want
to crop it closer to the flower
it will look like that and then using
the content grabber in the middle
i can drag the image around within this
crop if i wanted to move it around so
you can see why i'm referring to
the frame itself as a mask because it is
showing and hiding certain parts of the
image
now of course you can use different
shapes in indesign to create your frames
even if you have a frame that's already
rectangular like this one here
you can use the frame tools like the
ellipse frame tool
and draw a circle if you hold down the
shift key will be a perfect circle
or an ellipse if you want and once you
have that ready
you can just select the image itself
command or control x
to cut it out and then selecting your
frame you just have to use
command option v or control
alt v to paste into that shape
so this is still the same principle here
we have again the content grabber tool
we can move the image around within that
frame and even resize if we wanted to
so nothing really different apart from
the shape of course of the frame
and of course you have also the polygon
frame tool which works exactly the same
way
now if you click with that tool what's
worth mentioning is that you can
type in the amount of sides and you can
even create
star in set so basically instead of a
normal polygon
you can have a star so for example a
five uh
side star if i just type in 50
we will get a perfect star shape which
again will act as our frame
to be honest i very rarely or even never
used a star-shaped framing in design
but it's still worth mentioning and
maybe in one of your projects you will
find this useful
let me show you a cool technique if you
use the frame tool so the
normal rectangle frame tool you can do
another technique with this as well
and just so you can see what i'm doing
here i am going to create a separate
layer
and start drawing my frame so you can
see if i press
right arrow on the keyboard i can
separate my frame
or it's called gridify meaning creating
a grid of frames
i can use the up arrow also to divide it
into
rows let's just create maybe
something around that much that's seven
by four frames at this point and i'm
just going to
let go here so what happened here is
that we have a lot of separate frames
or a grid of frames and what we can do
is to cut the image out from the
background just like before i select it
and then press command x or control x
now i can select
all of these other frames and from the
object menu i'm going to choose
parts make compound path it's command or
control 8
the shortcut for it this is actually the
same shortcut in illustrator as well so
it's worth learning it for both
applications and what you will see is
that once you
created that all of these rectangles are
now joined so
even though they are still independent
rectangles
which i can select with the direct
selection tool and i can move around
it's still going to be handled as one
compound path
and the cool thing about that is if i
select all of them together so just
click on it now because it's one
entity i can use the shortcut command
option v or control alt v which is the
paste into feature
and you will see that the image will be
now placed into this grid of frames
so that is a really cool option and by
the way the paste
into feature is from the edit menu you
can find it there as well
and as i said before if i select one of
these
squares i can move it around even delete
one of them if i want to have an empty
space for
text in this case it would look really
cool in a brochure
so you can experiment with this feature
and see what you can come up with
but let me show you with the same image
another version if i use
the rectangle tool or rectangle frame
tool and i just draw maybe a frame
here i'm going to draw another frame
around here
and maybe another frame there it could
even be more like
portrait frame and then maybe let's just
have these overlapping as well
something like that and i'm just going
to rotate them slightly as well
why not just add a bit more interest on
it like that
also let's rotate this that way
now i'm going to select all of these
three frames
so currently they are just empty frames
and i created an object style in this
document which i'm going to
apply to them it's a simple white stroke
with a bit of drop shadow on them
so that's how they look and even like
this it looks interesting
but what we've done previously is to cut
the image out
select one of these frames and use the
shortcut paste
into and then repeat it for these other
images
and or other frames and now we have
again a very
creative version of the same original
composition
so in a way i use these frames to
highlight the most
interesting details of the image and
that is still just playing
with the rectangular frame tool we
haven't even used any more advanced
techniques
a lot of people wouldn't even think of
using tools like the pen tool
or the pencil and the smooth tools in
indesign but they are actually there
and they work almost exactly the same
way as in illustrator
i think indesign inherited these tools
from illustrator
because indesign is actually the
youngest one out of the three main
graphic design tools so photoshop
illustrator and indesign
this is the one that learned quite a lot
from the other three applications but
mainly from illustrator
so let's just say i would like to create
a cut out effect i could use the pen
tool of course for that
and i'm just going to draw around this
lady
let's just create an interesting
frame here so it's like a fashion cut
out
when you use scissors and you just cut
uh an image from its background that's
basically the effect
like that and that is already a frame so
i can now select
the image and paste into here with the
same shortcut
similarly to before we could also add
our object style on it
and then we have a cool cut out effect
now similarly to this
if i just copy the image and paste it in
again let's just put it here on the side
the one that we created with the pen
tool
so i'm just going to keep that there but
on this other one i'm going to use now
instead
the pencil tool and with this one i can
draw around it again i'm not trying to
create a perfect selection
but this is going to be a little bit
more organic less
sharp and edgy selection and here at the
bottom let's just close it off something
like that
i'm going to try to close it but to be
honest the easiest way to close it would
be to go to the object menu
paths and then close path
and that closed the end point for it now
once again
we could paste it in here cut the image
paste it in and then use again the same
frame style on it so the pencil tool is
more rounded compared to the pen tool
but if you wanted to refine edges on
either of these versions you can also
use the smooth tool
with which you can draw over the edges
that you created
and just smooth them out basically
so have a smoother transition on these
sharp corners
so just like in illustrator you can use
this tool
and if you double click on the smooth
tool in the toolbar
you get additional options like fidelity
and smoothness
let's move on to the next feature which
is
using typography as your
frame or turn text into the frame itself
now this is very similar to using
clipping masks in photoshop
but in indesign you actually need to
outline your text so you won't be able
to keep it editable
if you want to have an image inside a
word or a sentence or a single character
here i have this text still editable and
i turned it slightly
to have the e and the a joined up
together you will see why because i
actually have an interesting detail
there in the photo behind it
but first of all as i said we need to
outline this
the shortcut for that is command shift o
or ctrl shift
o but you can also go to the type menu
and choose
create outlines so once you've done that
your text is now made up of parts so
each character is turned into an
individual path
but it is actually held together as a
compound path
so if i go to the object menu and under
the
path options you can see it would say
release compound path
you can actually separate them into
individual
shapes but by default when you use the
outline
option it will create a compound path
which means that if i
copy this image or cut it out and paste
into the selection
it would immediately place it into all
of those characters at the same time
so now this word is our custom frame
and again if i hover over it i can use
the content grabber to move the image
around
within the text so you can see why i
wanted to keep this part here visible
and it's actually quite cool the way the
two letters i joined together
almost forming like a ligature
now feathering is against something
that's available in photoshop but here
in indesign you actually have a little
bit more options with it
first of all a tool that i really like
it's called gradient feather tool
it's something you can use when you
select an image and let's say you just
want to fade out one
part of it one side of it you can click
and drag
and it's going to fade out the other
side
of the image so if you want to keep
let's say the right side visible
you just have to do it from that side if
you do it in a shorter line
then the transition itself will be
shorter you can do it diagonally
and you can also do it vertically if you
want and so on and so forth
so this is called gradient feather and
with the tool
it's very quick and easy to set up but
there's
other two feathering options as well
which you can find from the fx drop down
so if you go here you can see gradient
feather is already on
and if you want it to be a bit more
specific you can also
change it here so for example even
instead of
linear you can use radial gradients
and you can reverse it as well but let's
just
see what else we have here we have
directional feather
it's important that you have to make
sure you click on the word as well so
whichever effect you are using make sure
you click on it
not just the tick otherwise you won't
see the options on the right
so once this is selected and the preview
option is on
at the bottom you will be able to see
how this works
basically the directional feather is a
similar feature to gradient feather but
in this case
you can control which side of your frame
should be feathered out and you can
control them independently
of each other or if you click on the
little chain here it will apply the same
amount of feathering on all
sides and last but not least we also
have basic feather
which is just a global feathering around
all the edges
so this is probably the most
straightforward one from all of them
now you can of course still play around
with these other values like
noise which can be interesting or you
can also use the choke
defining again the transition
the length of the transition in a way
and of course
you can also combine multiple feathering
if you ever want to do that
and these effects i would mainly use to
ghost out images and to have them
push back in the background to be able
to put some text over it or stuff like
that
of course you can combine it with a
reduced opacity
as well so you can soften at the edges
and then you can soften the image itself
as well
and that makes it much easier to use it
as a background element if you ever need
that maybe on a brochure
but now that you know how to use
feathering let's move on to something
more exciting and it's called
detect edges now i have an image here
and i'm just going to move it
over the text so you can see that it has
a white background
it's an isolated photograph so obviously
it's been prepared like this
but it's a simple jpeg file so there's
no
selections or masks prepared for it but
what i'm going to do is to go to the
object menu
and choose clipping path from there
choose options and if i
switch to detect edges you will see what
it can do
it automatically creates a selection for
us
again it tries to identify the high
contrast details
and based on that it's going to create
the selection
using a path now there's a couple of
additional options here you can increase
the threshold
or decrease the threshold in this case
decreased threshold is probably better
because you can see there were a few
details that were
lost if i had a higher threshold because
it's a completely wide background i
could
go down really low with the threshold
and i could further refine it if i
wanted to
by clicking ok and just use the direct
selection tool to move
any of these points around so if i come
a little bit closer
i can select let's say one of these
points here and either delete them or
move them around so i can move them
up and then let's just grab this point
here
drag it down so similarly how you would
work
with a vector mask in photoshop you can
do
exactly the same thing here within
indesign
i wouldn't recommend to spend too much
time on
parts in indesign because photoshop
can actually do probably a better job
but still
when we move this over here you can see
it's actually
quite nice now the only problem is that
i still feel like there's a
bit of the original white details
showing up around the edges
so for this if we go back to the
clipping path
options we can increase this feature
called inset
frame when i increase that up and click
ok click away
you can see the white gaps are gone now
there's still a couple of things that we
would need to refine but
it's better to do these type of things
in photoshop although indesign can do it
for you
if you want to do it quickly without
leaving in design it's perfectly fine
but you can do this better if you use
vector and pixel masks in photoshop but
detect edges feature is actually
something you can use also
for text wrap so not only for cutting
out an image from its original
background
but also for text wrap now that's still
something you apply onto your image
and this feature you can find from the
window menu text
wrap panel and within there you can
choose this third option which is the
wrap around
object shape and within here you will
find
the detect edges option but in case you
already use detect edges for your
clipping
you can just leave it as same as
clipping so you wouldn't have to
choose detect edges again it's just
worth mentioning that it is the same
feature that can be applied either for a
selection or for text wrap
so if i have this option on here and
maybe just increase the offset
you will see exactly what it does it
creates an
outline based on that path on this image
and it makes sure that when you move
this image closer to text
the text will be pushed away so the
outline will make sure that the text
wraps around the image so if you already
use detect edges to create a clipping
path in indesign for an image
you should also make use of it for a bit
of text wrap but of course
don't overdo it because these effects
can make it difficult to read
your copy so just a useful point here
if you do this feature it's best to use
it with justify text
because if it's not justified so let's
just say i left align it
then both left and right side is going
to be really
messy while when i go back to justified
text
at least the right side is completely
straight
and finally here's a few examples where
we can combine
the features of photoshop and indesign
so first of all
on the left side i have an image which
has a pixel mask
saved in it it's actually saved as a
channel
so if i alt or option double click on
this image
it will open up in photoshop and i can
show you exactly what i
created here there is an alpha channel
saved so it was
a selection that i saved as an alpha
channel
so it can also be something that you
save as a pixel mask
but in this case it's safe here into the
channels
and if i come here into indesign and go
to the object
clipping path options this is something
i will be able to
utilize by choosing alpha channel
as simple as that and then of course i
have to make sure
i choose also the channel which i call
the girl
so i click on that and then click ok
so we have a really nice selection
created from the alpha channel
or if you have an image which was saved
with that path
indesign will also be able to use that
so i go through again
clipping path options and then choose
photoshop path this time and there's the
camera which it found automatically that
was the only only path
saved and i can click ok and we can see
it looks great this was actually a path
that we created
in the photoshop masking tutorial if you
haven't seen it already
make sure you check it out it really
covers a lot the link is in the
description below
so both of these examples here you can
see in the tutorial
i go through step by step how i created
them so my preference when i work with
images in indesign
and i want to cut them out is to save a
path
into them so similarly to a vector mask
these are actually saved as
a path so again i can show you how this
looks
there's no layer mask or anything like
that but
the same thing that we've done in that
other video
that path or outline is saved as
a path and i just simply call it camera
so if you use the pen tool and you draw
your path you just have to make sure you
double click on the name
and name it and save it like that the
cool thing is that you can even
store pods in jpeg files so you don't
even have to have a
psd file you can have a smaller file
sized image
but it still can hold parts even
multiple parts if you need
you can store in one single jpeg but
here's one last example where i wanted
to create something a bit more
complicated
and i created both a vector mask and the
pixel mask
in photoshop so i can just show you how
this looks again if i
option double click here we will see
that
for this image if i turn off the photo
layer
i needed the pixel mask for the hair
and the vector mask for the body so
again
hard edges and soft edges that's how i
created it
in one layer having those two masks
creating the cut out and then i have
also the original full image
underneath so you will see why i created
this way
and i even named my layer so the one at
the bottom
is called photo and the one on the top
is called mask so as simple as that
but if we come back here into indesign
the reason why i've done it this way is
because i can select one of them
right click and choose object layer
options
or you can also find this from the
object menu if you want
and within that you can choose which
layers you want to show
so if i turn off the photo layer then
obviously we will see the masked out
version
i can then click ok and now i can align
these two images to each other
so i can drag this over to the other one
and let's just put both of them here in
the middle now why did i do this
what was the point of creating the mask
if i then put them on top of each other
well what i can do now is to select the
full
image version and if i drag the top edge
down maybe to somewhere around here then
we can create these cool
out of bounds effects and of course we
can decide how much
of the original image we want to see we
can even click on the little yellow
square on the right and drag these
points in to create more like a rounded
shape or even use a round shape there
instead of the rectangle
so just to combine a little bit the
techniques that we had i'm going to undo
these changes
and use the ellipse frame tool and draw
an ellipse let's just say
something like that and then i just cut
this out select that circular or
elliptical frame
and paste into so there you go we have a
very nice out of bounds effect