InDesign for QuarkXPress Users [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Importing Native File Formats

The ability to import Photoshop and Illustrator files (native files) without having to first save into flattened .EPS, .JPG, or .TIFF formats can significantly speed the creative process, as you can link in InDesign directly to the original Photoshop or Illustrator files. That way, InDesign can update immediately when you make changes to the graphic. This also means that you can simplify your workflow and only save a single version of each graphic file, rather than two (the original and the flattened version).

Another advantage of placing native Photoshop and Illustrator files is that they can contain transparency which InDesign recognizes. (EPS files don't support transparency.) In some cases, this can eliminate the need for creating clipping paths, as we discuss in Chapter 68.

To Import or Not to Import

The problem is that native Photoshop filesespecially those with many layerscan be huge. It probably doesn't make sense to import ten 200 MB .PSD files into InDesign, because when it comes time to send your file to the printer, you have to send those Photoshop files, too. Printing these files isn't a problem (though it takes InDesign a little longer to print because it has to flatten the images before sending them to the printer), but managing them is.

This problem is exacerbated when your native files are higher resolution than you need. For instance, many people manipulate 300-ppi images in Photoshop, but when it comes time to print, they downsample to 225 or 250 (which can save a huge amount of disk space and is plenty of data for 133 or 150 lpi halftones).

If you're dealing with very large Photoshop files, it may make more sense for you to use a more-traditional "downsample, sharpen, flatten, convert-to-CMYK, then export as TIFF" workflow (see David's

Real World Photoshop for more on Photoshop production issues). On the other hand, there's rarely a problem using native Illustrator filesas they're rarely unwieldyor smallish Photoshop files.

Native File Format Details

You can place Adobe Illustrator version 5.5 and later files directly into an InDesign document. Version 9 and later support transparency, and this transparency is maintained after importing the graphic into InDesign. In the next chapter, we show how you can even copy editable objects from Illustrator into InDesign.

InDesign can also place Adobe Photoshop version 4.0 and later files into your InDesign documents. All layers and layer masks are flattened when the image is placed in the document (the original image file remains untouched). However, vector objects (like type) are currently rasterized into bitmaps at print time, and InDesign cannot deal with .PSD files that include spot colors.