QuarkXPress Integration with Adobe Creative Suite 3
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The Green/Red button

In the bottom corner of the PSD palette is a button that will be green if your image status is OK. However, if the PSD palette has been modified or if it is missing, you’ll get the red light and won’t be able to make any changes. So, push on the red button and it’ll take you right to the image update dialogue box to find your PSD file.

Output

No special steps are required to output PSD files to print or PDF. Just take the usual steps you would take to make sure you have used the right colors, and so on. QuarkXPress color management and Job Jackets® both work with PSD files to give you reliable output.

PSD files can also be used in interactive and web layouts for output to Flash and HTML.

Effects layers

As powerful as the PSD import XTensions® module is, it can’t manipulate certain kinds of layers, such as layer effects.

If you use one of these layers, the image will import and print just fine, but you won’t get access to the layer controls of the PSD Import palette. If you need that functionality, you can eliminate those kinds of layers from your PSD by converting the layer effects to stand-alone layers. Vector shapes should also be converted to smart objects for maximum compatibility.

QuarkXPress supports text layers, most adjustment layers, and even the new 3D layers of Photoshop CS3 Extended, including opacity and blending mode controls.

QuarkXPress picture effects as an alternative to Photoshop

Photoshop is a power tool with many uses, but these days it’s overkill to fire up Photoshop just to crop, rotate, or even blur a picture. It’s time to use the QuarkXPress picture effects feature.

Picture effects uses a Photoshop­like image engine right inside QuarkXPress to apply adjustments and filters to images.

Picture effects is:

• Directly in your layout, so you can access it fast
• Color managed on screen, so you can set it up to show color as reliably as Photoshop
• Non-destructive, so you can change your mind at any time, even weeks later

Unlike PSD Import, that is designed to get the most out of your PSD images, Picture effects works with all of the other major raster-image formats such as TIFF, JPEG, Raster EPS, and so on. (Picture effects doesn’t work on PSD files.)

There are two main ways to use picture effects:

• Adjusting a single image
• Batch processing your images for basic transformations such as rotate, crop, scale, and so on

Adjusting a single image

As an example, maybe a scan came in looking soft, or maybe you want to use an image in color on the front page but in grayscale inside, or maybe you need to stylize a boring piece of stock art for some extra punch.

Photoshop will work fine, but you can use picture effects directly in your layout, saving a lot of guesswork and file saving. Window > picture effects opens up the picture effects window, allowing you to get the effect you want by applying multiple effects, turning effects on or off, rearranging their stacking order, and more. At output time, QuarkXPress will process the image to make sure your print, PDF, Flash, or any other format looks as you intended.

Figure 2 A creative application of picture effects.

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