I don’t use InDesign all that often and when I do it’s for pretty straightforward layout projects. Now I’ve got a problem that totally confounds me and I’m wondering if you can pull me through. Perhaps I’m asking InDesign to do something it can’t do?
I’m trying to marry two images: a photograph of a window (exterior view) and a menu I’m designing, using InDesign. The menu is supposed to fit into the window frame in the photo. The finished image is just going to serve as a presentation for the restaurateur, that’s all, so picture quality is not of essence. None the less I’m going for a photorealistic effect. I want the finished sketch to look nice, not jarring.
I took the photo from a slight angle so the window (one pane of glass) appears trapezoidal in shape. But the trapezoid is none too ‘clean’ or regular because of slight lens distortion.
What I did was I ‘placed’ the photograph, in its full size, in an InDesign document to use as reference. The menu I designed is comprised of text and number of photos. I was planning on grouping all the elements in the menu, essentially creating one object that I’d be able to distort (using some type of ‘free transform’ tool) so that it would fit the window frame in my reference photo. To get a match of perspectives.
Once I’d matched the perspective of the menu in InDesign to that of the window frame in the photo I thought I could simply import the distorted menu into Photoshop to finish the job.
I thought this process would be dead simple but it isn’t.
Basically I need a tool in InDesign that allows me to distort/transform an object any which way. I haven’t been able to locate that tool. Or is this something I should be doing in Illustrator?
Anna
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