Adobe CS3 Design Workflow - How to Import Various File Formats and Edit Original

So check this out, I am going to go over and find my links palette over on the right hand side. If you do not see your links palette on the right hand side, go to your Window menu and then go down to links, and what the links palette does, is tracks all of my imported file. So you can see I have layered Photoshop.psd with a mysterious I icon by the way, that indicates that InDesign is controlling the layer visibility, and there is my picture1.jpeg which I imported not too long ago. Now here is what I am going to do, I am going to highlight layeredPhotoshop.psd, and then down at the bottom of my links palette there is a little Edit button. So I am going to click on that, and what that will do, is launch Photoshop, and open up the graphic for me. I had Photoshop running in the background already. So on your computer it would probably launch Photoshop and then open up my graphic. Now I can make whatever edits I want to this image inside Photoshop.

I am going to keep things nice and simple. I am going to take this graphic and convert it to black and white or gray scale as we call it. So I am going to go to my image menu all the way up at the top, and then down to Mode, and then I am looking for Gray scale, there it is. I will choose that, Photoshop asks me if I want to merge all of my layers, I am going to choose don't merge, and then I am going to get this little warning here, Discard Color Information, and it gives me a menu path where I can control the conversion, that's fine. I am just going to take the defaults, and I will go discard, sure enough get rid of that color. Now there it is, I am going to save this just by hitting Command+S or Ctrl+S on the PC. Now when I switch back to InDesign, I am just going to Alt+Tab back to InDesign. You can Ctrl+Tab back on the PC. I don't even have to tell InDesign to update the graphic. InDesign is smart enough to realize that the Photoshop file has been updated, and it simply reloads it in, how awesome is that? You want to see that one more time?

I am going to grab a layered Photoshop.psd inside my links palette, I will click on Edit Original, even though I already have it open inside Photoshop, no worries there, you know what I am going to do, I simply want to undo what I have done. The easiest way to do that, is I am going to go and grab my history palette inside Photoshop, and I will go all the way back to the previous state of layered Photoshop.psd, just click on the top item there. History allows me to essentially go back in time, it's pretty cool. So I have my full color image back. I will simply go. File, Save, or Ctrl+S or Command+S, and then you can tab back to InDesign, Alt+Tab on the Mac, Ctrl+Tab on the PC, and InDesign instantly updates. It's incredible, it's awesome, and that's the power of working with Photoshop and InDesign together.

Now it doesn't end there, I am going to take my layered Photoshop file, I am going to get it out of the way, because I want to import yet another graphic. I am going to go and grab a native Illustrator file, a .ai file, I am going to use my keyboard shortcut to import this guy as well. If you remember, it's Command+D on the Mac or Ctrl+D on the PC, and the file that I am after is called the Rottentomato.ai. It's inside your Chapter 02 folder, go ahead and select it, and then I'll click on Open, and I get my loaded icon, one more time I will single click, and look at this guy, he is huge, he comes in massive on my layout, so I am going to use my Ctrl+Shift trick that I showed you earlier. I hold down Ctrl and Shift or Command and Shift here on the Mac, and click and drag on one of the corners to resize this guy down.

I'll scale him down for more reasonable size, there he is, and I am going to scale him down one more time here. There we are, something like that, I am just going to get my layered Photoshop file out of the way down here, so we have our tomato, there is our rotten tomato, he is pretty rotten guy, isn't he? But he is not colored, I have him sitting here inside InDesign, and he is black and white, there is no color on him. Take a look at my links palette, and sure enough there is rottentomato.ai. So here is what I am going to do, same deal as I did my with my native Photoshop file. I have got rottentomato.ai selected, I will click on my Edit Original button down at the bottom of the links palette, and sure enough Illustrator launches and opens up rotten tomato.

Now I am going to make just a very simple change here. I am going to grab the word rotten inside Illustrator, and by the way, inside Illustrator I have my black arrow tool selected, my select tool. So I grab the word rotten, I am going to hold down shift and click on the word tomato, that highlights all those letters, and then over on the right hand side I am going to grab my swatches palette, and I will simply choose a color. I am going to fill this with red, there we are, very lovely, just a very simple change, just like I did back I Photoshop. I am going to save this guy Ctrl+S or Command+S.

Now this file was created in a previous version of Illustrator, so you are going to get this legacy format dialogue box, just click on OK, that's fine, we won't worry about that, and I am going to tab back to InDesign, and sure enough my Illustrator file updates, isn't that amazing ? So forget about saving your Photoshop in Illustrator files into alternative formats, back in the day we would have to save it with EPS for Illustrator and TIF, for our Photoshop files. Forget about that stuff, now you can stick with your fully editable native formats .ai for Illustrator, .psd for Photoshop. But it doesn't end there. I got to show you more stuff. I am going to take my Rotten Tomato push him aside, there is yet another file format that I want to import here. InDesign will let me import a PDF file. That's right, a PDF File, I can import a PDF file, that's crazy. So I am hit Command+D or Ctrl+D on the PC, and look for Metal Menace Monthly.pdf, there he ism and I am going to click on Openm and my PDF comes in as a graphic. Now, this guy is huge, so I am going to have to zoom out a just little bit, so we can see the whole thing.

He is massive, look he is even getting cut off by the artboard. So I am going to have to use my Command and my Shift or my Ctrl and Shift on the PC to scale this guy down. There he is, look at that, it's a PDF file imported as a graphic. I will get some stuff get out of way here, so you can see what I have. I will zoom in just a little bit, so you can see what we have. There it is, I can import PDF files, it's just amazing, just awesome, and keep your eye on that links palette. Again he will tell you everything that you have imported into your file, and sure enough there is Metal Menace Monthly.pdf.

Now what I could do, is I could click on Edit Original. That would open this guy up inside Acrobat, and then I could make whatever changes I want to the PDF file inside Acrobat, save it back, and of course InDesign would update automatically, it's very cool stuff. I got to show you one more thing relate to importing content into your layouts. This is a new feature inside the InDesign CS3. My page is getting really cluttered here. So you know, I am going to drag down to Page 2, and I am going to drop in the next file right beside Page 2. In fact, you might want to zoom out just a little bit. So I have a nice big open piece of white space that I can import some content onto. I am going to use my keyboard shortcut Command+D or Ctrl+D, and this time, are you ready for it? I am going to import an InDesign document into an InDesign document, it's just awesome.

So inside your Chapter 02 folder, you will find Import me.indd this is crazy. So I am going to import this fellow, there is my loaded icon; I get my little preview of my InDesign document. I will single click, and sure enough there is an InDesign file, an InDesign layout inside my current InDesign layout. It's just wild, it's just crazy. And you can see that my background comes in transparent. There is my sidebar underneath my imported InDesign layout. So you know what, I am just going to take my sidebar and get it out of the way, because I wan