Photoshop Tutorial for Beginners
How To Save Transparent Background. This tutorial covers creating a transparent background in Photoshop, saving the files and placing them into InDesign as either a JPG with a Path and Clipping Path or TIF with Layer Mask
Video Tutorial Outline
- Saving files with Path or Clipping Path: Save as JPG, quality is set to a minimum of 9 or 10. Any lower and the pixel compression will be noticeable when the image is rasterised to a halftone (Dots for Printing). Format is set to Baseline (“Standard”)
- Saving files with a Layer Mask: Save as TIF or PSD. Save setting for TIF. LZW (Lossless compression), Image Pyramid off (On includes thumbnail previews for faster display, irrelevant these days with faster PCs and laving on creates bigger files), Tick on Save Transparency, Interleaved (Older format more universally supported), Byte Order is irrelevant these days, Layer Compression is ZIP for smaller files
- Placing images saved with a Clipping Path or Layer Mask: These images are automatically Cut Out and simply need to be placed. Layer Masked images have a softer edge. You can soften the edge of a Clipping Path by selecting Menu/Object/Effects/Basic Feather then adjusting the Feather Width value to suit, must be noted that the result is not a good as a Layer Mask feather
- Saving files with a Path: Save as JPG. When placing in InDesign the image wont be cut out. To apply the path select Menu/Object/Clipping Path/Options then Type is Photoshop Path and choose the Path in the Path dropdown menu. Duplicate image first to partially poke the image out of the picture box
Click here or the image below to download the exercise file
Pen Tool Tutorial Captions
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Welcome to PEN TOOL Photoshop. In this tutorial, I’ll cover what you do with the path and the
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different ways you would import that into InDesign. There are a few different options. We can
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save as a layer mask, we can save as a clipping path, or we can just leave it as a path. And I’ll go
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through all these three different options and how we go about saving that.
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So, I still have this file here open, with Path 1. The first step we’ll cover is saving it as a clipping path.
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Select the Path go here, select clipping path. Path 1. So, you’ll save this image to the desktop as a JPEG
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Hit save. Just going to save it as JPEG 9 that would be the lowest setting we would go to to retain some detail,
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and a JPEG will retain this path. So, hit okay. And that will save as a JPEG with the clipping path.
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So, the second option is I can just save it without a Clipping Path.
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So, just as a regular path. And then save that as not-
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-not a clipping path, just a regular path. Still as a JPEG. Save that to the desktop. The other way
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would be to command and then click on the path as a selection. So, under select, I can choose
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modify, feather. So give it a bit of a feather, two pixels. Then in the layers palette, click on add
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mask. See, now I have a mask. In this case, I need to save it. So, I’m using this shortcut here for
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save as. Command-shift-S. To the desktop. I can save it as a Photoshop file, or I can save it as a
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TIFF. Photoshop file would just save. There’s no options for Photoshop. With a TIFF, hit save. I
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normally embed the color profile. Complete different tutorial outside of this tutorial. But it’s
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always very good to embed a color profile for color consistency.
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So, I hit save. The options for a TIFF. You always want to include LZW compression.
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Obviously, I want to make save transparency is on. This is just telling you that some
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programs don’t support transparency.
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All the information about image pyramid and all that other detail, if you visit
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pentoolphotoshop.com, it goes into all the details about what these settings mean. So, I want a Mac
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and I want ZIP compression. So I want a small file. LZW and ZIP compression will
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make it a much smaller file. So, hit okay. The main one is save transparency. Without compression it’s going to
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make it a much larger file.
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So, I’ve got the three versions saved now, that’s the TIFF. And I click over to InDesign. I have a
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blank document open. So, I’m going to place the images into InDesign. So first, command-D.
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The first image I want to place is the transparent background. That’s the TIFF and it doesn’t have
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a clipping path activated. So you hit open. Click and drag. And you can see it’s cut out.
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Go to the menu, view, overprint preview. It’s a nice soft edge, exactly as you see it in Photoshop. The next
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image I’ll place will be the clipping path. So, you hit open. Place that image.
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So you can see, That’s the clipping path.
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Really sharp edge. Whereas the layer mask, really nice and soft feather.
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Sometimes a hard edge is fine, hard edge objects. But most people like a layer mask. The
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advantages and disadvantages are all listed on pentoolphotoshop.com. You might want the sharp
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look. And you can see up here if I’ve cut in too far.
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And check this one. It’s much more natural sort of look with the layer mask.
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The last option was to place in the image that does not have a clipping path and is a JPEG.
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Place this image, So, you can see, it’s not cut out. The purpose of this though, is you might want to partially
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poke out part of the image. So what I can do is duplicate this box. Copy/paste in place. So now, I have
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two like that. Now, go into object, clipping path options, Photoshop path. And now I can choose
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the actual Photoshop path. Hit okay. And now that path is applied. So when I go to the
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image below and move the box down so you can see the path is applied.
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And you can see the path come out of the box. So, this is also where you’ve got to be careful as
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to how far you come in. See how it notches in a little bit. If you know it’s a partial and partially
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breaking out of a box, that’s where you’ve got to be careful about how far you come in. Now,
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you can see it’s a really nice effect. And that’s how magazines partially break out the image. You
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can do it with a TIFF and a PSD file, it’s just a different process I won’t go into.
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You can move this box all the way around.
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Also in Photoshop, I talked about how you can put a feather on a Path in InDesign. I don’t recommend it. It’s
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not really the greatest option. Menu, object, effects, basic feather, preview. Then, you start to see
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the effect come in.
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Just play around with these settings. It really depends on the circumstance. So, that’s how to
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place the final path through layer mask, or path through clipping path, or just regular path, in
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InDesign. I will see you in the next tutorial.
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