Forecasts
predictions of the cutting edge
Frames - meshing Graphics and Text
Trudy Levy
Image Integration
I bet last month when I said I would tell you about Adobe's incredible integration of their software, you thought I would be talking about layers and palettes and such. Nooo, I wasn't thinking of just integrating tools and appearances, but actually meshing software intent and truly capturing and combining the possibilities of digital design. The best example I found of this is frames in InDesign, their desktop publishing software.
At first glance it would seem that "frames" is just the InDesign's term for containers or boxes, but as you get into the program you begin to see that it is both a graphic term and a layout term and that is what I mean by total integration.
A frame delimits boundaries for text and an image, but it is not just a container. Yes, a frame may show the limits of view of an object or be like a container, but there are other frames that shows the limits of the object itself,limits of text run-around or limits of a clipping path. Each of these frames can be manipulated separately.
For example, in desktop publishing software you can normally set text to stay 5 points away from an image's boundary. In InDesign that run-around is formed in its text wrap palette which creates a frame which can be manipulated separately from the object. It can be deformed by pulling out a corner or you can add anchor points to it and totally change its shape.
Remember Anchor points, applied by that infamous tool in Illustrator- the pen. The one that has chased many of us away from Illustrator, because we just didn't get bezier curves, let alone anchor points. Well Adobe put the "pen" command in its tool box for InDesign. With it you can draw those very accurate if frustrating lines and add anchor points to other graphic elements such as frames. Neat uh? A raster tools and vector tools integrated into one program.
To see how this all works lets talk about the two basic frames - the layout frame used to crop and locate the image and the image frame used to manipulate the object. You can place a frame to layout each object - text or graphic that you place - in a document. Or each object will come with it own frame when you click and drag the loaded icon in the location you which to place the object. When you place the object, whether inside an existing layout frame or by clicking and dragging, it also comes with an object frame. If you place an object which is smaller or larger than the layout frame you will clearly see the two frames. If you have placed the image without a pre-existing layout frame, the two frames will be on top of each other, but you can select them individually.
By selecting the object frame with direct select tool you can move the object within the layout frame, scale or otherwise modify the object. I am saying object because the Adobe is treating both text and graphic as an object. In fact the eye dropper tool brought in from PhotoShop will capture text characteristics from a text object as well as it captures a color from a graphic object.
In the beginning we already described how the text wrap or text run-around frame works but we also mentioned clipping paths as a frame. So what are they? You can place native PhotoShop file formats in InDesign, so you don't need to flatten and merge layers. This way the image keeps its background transparency and alpha channels. You can then make the clipping paths into frames that can once more be manipulated independently. If you don't have channels to use as a clipping path, InDesign will make one for you by sensing the edges of an image.
So there you have four boundaries, each individually modified and shaped and effecting an object in it own way with the end result that the nature of the object become blurred and adaptable to your desires.
This is just one example of where Adobe is blurring the difference between its vector graphics, text formatting, raster imaging, and printing technology to give us total design capability.
Its digital design by Adobe. Enjoy.
9/4/02
Image
Integration
the digital
imaging guide always there to help you
