Here’s a beautiful technique that’s unusually easy to design: ghost and repeat a foreground image in the background. It’s unusually effective, too; the subtle repetition adds surprising depth and, with photos, a storytelling dimension. Placing the ghost higher on the page than the foreground image reinforces our perception that it’s in the back.
You can get excellent results by fading a full-color original, but the look we favor is to ghost a monochromatic copy. Save a copy in Photoshop as a grayscale image, then place into InDesign and fill with a faint color. Scale and send to the back.
Detail Fills a Page
Here’s another example where a mere detail of the lavish initial has been cut and expanded to fill an entire cover. Be sure to ghost it sufficiently; full-strength usually makes a clash.
Pay Attention to the Center
Your reader won’t be aware, but the three masks form a triangle at page center that balances the design and holds the focus where the reader’s eye naturally falls. Decorative saw teeth define the asymmetrical column and resemble the mask in both form and color, drawing image and page into one visual unit.
This article was last modified on June 20, 2023
This article was first published on December 12, 2003
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
Leave a Reply
Would love to know how he did this in InDesign. I followed instructions and it just change the fill colour, but the object remained grayscale.
Hi Rodger-
The trick is that the image must be flattened and in Grayscale mode in order for you to recolor it in InDesign. It can’t be a desaturated RGB or CMYK image and it can’t have layers. Hope that helps.
John always has well-thought-out projects to describe functions and techniques. You know when you hunt down something by him that it’s going to be useful, fun to do, and gorgeous!
…i would have loved to know what % you used? and maybe guidlines for %’s…