OK, the title of this blog is a little deceptive? I haven’t switched my image editing program from Photoshop to InDesign. InDesign is not an image editing program. But I did have an interesting discussion with myself as to why I had to stop laying out an ad in Photoshop and move it over to InDesign.
My journey started when I created a banner ad for my upcoming one-day seminar on Mastering the Creative Suite (flagrant plug). I had originally laid out the three banner ads in Photoshop because I was outputting as JPEG web images.
But when I got a half-page ad in InDesign Magazine, I figured it would be easier just to keep the artwork as a Photoshop document and save it as a Photoshop PDF. That way I would maintain the crisp, PostScript text without having to recreate the layout in InDesign.
If I didn’t save as a Photoshop PDF, and just saved as an ordinary Photoshop document, all the text would be rasterized when the Photoshop file was placed into InDesign.
But there was one tiny problem that forced me to abandon the Photoshop layout except for the area of the magnifying glass and the text underneath.
The problem was the Creative Suite Conference logo that I had placed in the Photoshop file as a Vector Smart Object.
Although they may be called “Vector” Smart Objects, they do not output as crisp vector information. Vector Smart Objects may store their vector information for editing purposes, but they are rastered on final output.
In my case I needed the logo to output as PostScript. This meant adding the logo to an InDesign file as an Illustrator file, PDF, or EPS.
This is the basis for my next wish for Photoshop (and no, I don’t know anything about what’s coming up):
I want the current type of Vector Smart Object to be divided into two categories. In addition to what we have now, I want a Vector VerySmart? Object that will maintain its vectors.
In addition, I want the VerySmart? Objects to maintain any spot colors that have been applied.
This would give Photoshop a much-needed boost in its spot color abilities which have hardly changed in three or four versions.
This article was last modified on December 18, 2021
This article was first published on August 20, 2006
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