Adobe InDesign Tutorial/Help/something

KVW

I made a "fake" magazine a few months back for my blog using Photoshop since I couldn't figure how the hell to use InDesign. I know InDesign is supposed to be amazing for layouts and magazine-like work. I want to learn how to use it, but can't seem to find decent tutorials / template downloads to 'dive in' and see how things go together. Most tutorials haven't been very useful for me for whatever reason.

For example, i tried this tutorial for a cover and any images I used (mine were like 1300x1800 pixels or so) barely cover the page and doing what they say only strecthed the image. I gave up, went to photoshop and just slapped text on it like so:

The types of magazine pages I'd like to make with InDesign as templates would look something like (shrunk here, but were in 1300x1800ish resolution) :

In Photoshop, I spent most of the time moving text around to fit properly and from what I've seen of InDesign, it can easily curve around images and so on. Adding numbers to pages manually was annoying as well and ID can do that for projects if I'm not mistaken. I basically want to be able to just have templates where I drop the images in, paste my text, adjust it slightly and move on to the next one without spending an hour on the damn thing, but can't seem to get a good grasp of it with online resources I've found.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to look for free / non-book related tutorials or templates or general advice?

Ataxrxes

It's probably better to do all your graphic work in photoshop first, then use ID to do all your text and other elements, etc. It's been awhile since I used ID regularly and I learned it at school so I'm not sure about online tutorials. If I come up with anything I'll post it here. Oh, what version are you using?

KVW

I have InDesign CS3.

Jake!

There are three pieces of software you'll find used on most magazine layouts;

Photoshop - raster based (i.e. you're editing point values), used for image editing

Illustrator - vector based, used for complex single page illustrations, and fancier text effects (and to be honest that's what I'd lay a cover like that out on).

Indesign - used to layout the document page by page, mostly for text to be honest.

Now, the problem it sounds like you're having, is that you're not asking indesign to fill the frame proportionally with your image, hence why it's stretched.

humble

the problem with your images most likely is that the resolution was off

if the image was as big as you say, the resolution or dpi would maybe be at 72 if it were for the web

so when you place it into indesign its placing it in a 300 dpi document, so the measurements dont add up


before you place an image in indesign, go into photoshop, make sure it is the same resolution as your page and then import it.

flatlinegraphics

well, to start out, a 1300x1800 px image is only 4.3inx6in @300dpi. sounds like you are using screen resolution raster graphics for print projects. your images should be (minimum) 150dpi for newsprint, 300dpi for print. so an 8.5x11 graphic should be 2550x3300px.

beyond that, right click->fill frame proportionally will fill the frame with the graphic.

I'm not sure that there are many templates for InDesign. the point of indesign is to make your own. its made to be a heavy lifter, to handle mass amounts of text and images. layout books and whole magazines. for a single cover, Illustrator may be better (plus, you can then just drop that illustrator file into your indesign layout...).

here is a link that may help:
http://www.thegridsystem.org/categories/templates/

KVW

Id just like to clarify I'm not trying to do a print version. It's just a random downloadable fun thing. I was mostly using the highest resolution images I could find online and most official art given out seemed to be roughly the 1300x1800ish that I mentioned above. I'm also not looking for a template that I can use - just one that I can see how it's done and working since I was having problems with the tutorials I've found (which seems to be due to not knowing about DPI differences and probably trying to do too much, too fast with the program).

Random thought - is it possible to 'cut out' the example review pages above to use as a template of my own? I know you can slice up images for webpages in Photoshop if you wish. Is it possible to do something similar with the photoshop created layouts I made? Like draw a box around images and text sections and titles and the page numbers and footers sections and so on?

flatlinegraphics

ah. ok.
since the main thrust to InDesign is print production, its going to always assume you are doing print, and therefor try to import things at 300dpi. Also, remember that amount of pixels is independant of physical size. This is where dpi comes in, and may be why things are importing at tiny sizes, even tho you have a decent amount of pixels.

open the original in photoshop and change the size of the image. remember to uncheck the 'resample image' option. make it the physical size of the page. now, when you import the image, it should be the correct size. the dpi will still be off, and it may print like crap, but it will be the correct size.

as for cutting out things, that is what the frame is for. black arrow will resize the frame without resizing the content. white arrow will affect the content only, and you can pan the content around within the frame. you can use bezier shapes, or anything else, for frames. you can put the same image into different frames, with different sections of the image visable. you can use the pen tool to add more ancor points and create custom shapes.

you can import the above images and send them to the back/put them on a differnt layer and then design ontop of them. or you can insert them into a master page.

master page: f12 to bring up the pages palette. the upper half is master pages, the lower half layout. master pages can be applied to layout pages. so you;d set up your footers in the master page, and it will be applied to all layout pages. you can have multiple masters and can apply different master pages to different layout pages. but any given page can have only one master.

hope this is helping... indesign and print work is a very different mindset than interactive and web.