› › PHO TOSHOP Q&A> KELBY ONE.COM
[ 101 ]ALL IMAGES BY DAVE CROSSQ: I need to prepare a photo in Photo-
shop to place into InDesign, and the
photo needs to have a transparent
background. What’s the best way to
do that?
A: One of the big advantages of using Photo-
shop with InDesign is that InDesign recog-
nizes and works with Photoshop documents.
That means if you create transparency in
Photoshop (using a layer mask, for example)
and save it as a PSD file, you can place that
file into InDesign, and the transparency will
be preserved. And the link is live, so if you
need to edit the original in Photoshop, just
hold down Command-Option (PC: Ctrl-Alt)
and double-click on the placed file to jump
back to Photoshop. Edit the file in Photoshop
and save it, and it will automatically update
in InDesign. (In the example shown here, a
Black & White adjustment layer was added to
the Photoshop document and saved, and the
InDesign document automatically updated.)
Q: Is it possible to place/import sev-
eral photos into a document (rather
than importing them one at a time)?
A: There’s a way to do it but it’s not obvious.
If you’ve tried using File>Place Linked or
Embedded you’ll know that doesn’t work,
as it asks you to choose a single file. In
order to place several files, you have to
drag-and-drop those files into your docu-
ment either from Bridge or your operat-
ing system. When you do, you’ll see the
first image appear with transformation
handles. Drag on a corner handle to resize
the placed image (if necessary), and when
you press Enter, the next image will appear
(also with transformation handles). Repeat
that operation (scale and press Enter) until
all the dragged images have been placed,
and you’ll see separate smart object lay-
ers for each image that was dragged into
the document.