DesignGeek 47: InDesign Secrets Podcast, Photoshop CS2 Layer Tips, New Resources for InCopy Users, New Content in DesignGeek Central

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*** DesignGeek ***
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Tips and techniques for the digital designer

In this issue:
-- InDesign Secrets: Our New Podcast
-- Photoshop CS2 Layer Tips
-- New Resources for InCopy Users or Wannabes
-- Ton of New Content in DesignGeek Central

Issue 47, 12/5/05
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers

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InDesign Secrets: Our New Podcast
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Fellow tip-ophiles, my apologies for not sending out a DesignGeek in November. I plead greed. There were so many new projects I wanted to do all at once that DesignGeek took a back seat.

I'm thrilled to say that one of these is a new web portal and podcast that David Blatner and I are doing. It's called InDesign Secrets:
http://www.indesignsecrets.com

For now, the web site is mainly serving as a home for the podcast. As of this writing we've got the premiere episode published -- twenty minutes of David and I trading InDesign tips and techniques and having lots of fun playing radio dj's. Take a listen!

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes on the Mac or Windows -- just search for "InDesign Secrets" or either of our names in the Music Store -- or you can listen to an .mp3 of the episode right in your browser via the web site:
http://www.indesignsecrets.com/podcast.html

In the coming weeks we'll be filling up the site with all sorts of resources for InDesign users, and recording new podcast episodes every week or so. If you have any suggestions for show topics, or InDesign questions you'd like answered on the show, you can e-mail us at info@indesignsecrets.com.

Stay tuned <cough> for further developments .. ;-)

P.S. Speaking of InDesign, you may enjoy seeing the Flash video files (about 20 minutes worth) of me, David, Sandee Cohen and Deke McClelland talking about switching to InDesign. For some reason they deleted the musical segments showing our silhouettes hip-hop dancing with InDesign boxes -- guess it must have been a trademark thing:
http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/whychooseindesign/main.html
(scroll down to the bottom of that page to see it)

Note: If all you see are our faces and a red triangle (no list of segment titles at the left and nothing plays), that's because Adobe messed up the plug-in detection in the HTML code. Installing the latest Flash player, a one-minute ordeal, takes care of the problem:
http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflash

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Photoshop CS2 Layer Tips
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Unlinking One
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If you've been using Photoshop CS2 at all, you've learned that linking layers (to align or distribute their contents, or transform them as a group) is slightly different than in previous versions, and takes a little getting used to.

Of course, with CS2's new ability to select multiple layers at once (by shift- or Command/Ctrl-clicking them), linking them is less necessary than before. You can align, distribute, and transform a multiple selection of layers without linking them first.

Still, if you're working with a lot of layers and repeatedly manipulating the same set of layers in unison, it's a lot easier to link them at some point. Just select them and click the Link icon at the bottom of the palette, or choose Link Layer from the palette menu or Layer menu. The link icons appear to the right of each layer that was selected. From then on, all you need to do is select one of the linked layers, do something to it, and the other layers linked to it will transform in unison. It's kind of like a Save Selection for multiple layers.

But what if at some point you want to transform all of the layers in the linked group, except one? In CS1 and previous, you just needed to click the layer's link icon (to the left of the layer name in the now-defunct Link column) to toggle its link state on and off. You'd think in CS2 you could click the Link icon to the right of the layer name to unlink it, but you'd be wrong -- clicking the link icon does nothing. Worse, clicking the Link icon at the bottom of the palette unlinks all the layers in that set from each other, not just the one that was selected. Arghness.

The solution is simple, thank heavens. To unlink one layer from the rest, shift-click its link icon on the right (don't just click, shift-click). A red X appears on top of layer's link icon indicating it's temporarily unlinked. Do what you will with the other linked layers and the X'd layer stays put. When you're done and you want to re-link the layer to the others, shift-click on the red X and it disappears, leaving the link icon intact.

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Select Similar
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I often want to select layers that are the same kind -- all the text layers, for example, or all the raster layers and not the vector or type layers. That's why I was happy to see a new command, Select Similar Layers, that does just that. Select a layer and choose the command, and magically, all the other layers that are the same kind become selected.

I'll wait here for a second while you look for the command. La da da, la da di. Couldn't find it, could you? That's because you looked in the obvious places, my child. It's not in the Layer menu nor in the Layer palette menu. It's hiding in plain sight in the Select menu (Select > Similar Layers) which I grudgingly concede is the logical home. Good news, the Select Similar Layers command is also hiding in the contextual menu -- right-click on a layer to access it.

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New Resources for InCopy Users or Wannabes
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Adobe InCopy, the editorial adjunct to InDesign, is slowly bubbling up into the collective consciousness of page layout professionals. This is evidenced by a growing number of articles, tutorials, and even (finally) a third-party book about the software. I'm thrilled, because I never know what to say to my InCopy training clients when they ask me what resources are available other than on-line help and my InCopy Resources page (http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/incopy.html):

Don't Be Editorial's Prisoner
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23695.html
This was written by me and went up on creativepro.com's web site just a few days ago. It's actually a companion piece to a longer, more in-depth article I wrote on InCopy (and why designers love it) that's coming up in InDesign Magazine (see the next item).

Big InCopy Feature Article [working title]
http://www.indesignmag.com/idm/issues.html
Well, I don't know the title the editor will give to my InCopy article yet. But it's a good read -- it's aimed at designers but has enough info for the editors and management at your company to warrant your passing it on to them (while paying for a second copy of course!). The article will be in the December 2005/January 2006 issue (#12) of InDesign Magazine, to be published in its usual 60+ page PDF form on December 12, along with lots of other great InDesign content that the magazine is known for.

InCopy CS2 (6-part series)
http://quarkvsindesign.com/news/archives/2005/10/incopy-cs2-the-world-world-incopy-cs2/
Written by Pariah Burke and his staff at QuarkVSInDesign.com, this six-part series introduces InCopy CS2 and how it works in the real world. They're up part 4 now, and I'm looking forward to parts 5 and 6.

The Adobe InCopy CS2 Book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321337050/
You can pre-order this book now but it's not due to be released until the middle of January. It's published by Adobe Press and written by "in the field" Adobe application engineers Adam Pratt (Chicago) and Mike Richman (New York City). Adam's a good friend of mine and I know he and Mike are doing a fantastic job on the book.

InCopy CS2 Essential Training
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=177
This five-hour series of InCopy video tutorials from lynda.com came out just a couple weeks ago. You can purchase the CD ($99.95) or take the Quicktime lessons on-line ($25 or $30/month) at her web site. I went through the lessons and I think the author, Colin Fleming, did a great job of explaining the essentials, just like the title says.

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A Ton of New Content on DesignGeek Central
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My assistant, Sherri, and I just wrapped up a months-long effort of updating the content in DesignGeek Central, the section of my web site that contains my software resource pages (as well as DesignGeek back issues):
http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/

Check out the resource pages for Photoshop, Acrobat, InDesign and Illustrator, especially; as we found great new books and a sheaf of new Adobe white papers (in-depth guides in PDF form) for each of these programs, which were buried in various places on Adobe's web site. Also of note, the OpenType Resources page has links to new Type 1 to OpenType conversion guides and glyph charts, and I added two new resource pages, one for Adobe Bridge and one for Version Cue.

As before, each resource page contains links, artwork, and pithy commentary about what I consider to be the best information available for the program or topic in question, and best of all, many of the resources are free. A typical resource page includes links to relevant DesignGeek articles, best books and magazines, Adobe/Quark/Apple white papers and tutorials, user groups, mailing lists, forums, video and on-line training, third-party web sites, blogs, podcasts, plug-ins, actions, XTensions, and kitchen sinks.

Everything that's listed on the resource pages has been reviewed by me (yes, I download, open and read each PDF, read each book, take each tutorial), so you know what you're getting before you click and what you're getting is good.

I assemble these pages mainly for the benefit of my training clients (so they have all my recommended resources for their program in one URL -- less work for me), but I know they're useful for any design professional, from newbie ("QuarkXPress to InDesign CS2 Conversion Guide," "OpenType Overview") to uber-geek pros ("Applied Color Theory in Photoshop listserv," "CS2 Bridge Javascript Reference Guide").

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To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site:
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Recent training clients in Chicago and throughout the U.S. and Canada include Group Publishing (InDesign, InCopy); World Book Publishing (Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge); Kalmbach Publishing (advanced InDesign and InCopy); Goodheart-Wiilcox Publishing (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Bridge); Tyndale House (InDesign); Mountain Equipment Co-Op (InCopy); Great Books Foundation (InCopy); and Clune Construction (InDesign, Photoshop)
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DesignGeek is a free bimonthly publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a cross-media designer and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.senecadesign.com/).

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