InDesign: Inserting Photos for Beginners

Hello fellow followers,

I’ve recently come across some colleagues who have yet to learn the basics of Indesign and here I am to help. One of the most basic skills of InDesign is inserting photos into boxes.

First: Make a document by going to File > New > Document. At this point you can pick out the purpose of your publication and the dimensions which best fit your needs.

Second: Go over to the Rectangle tool on the left toolbar of the program > click it > click it again and drag it over the document to form your rectangle of desired size.

Third: Open the desired photograph you wish to use (for the sake of this tutorial I will be using a photo of the Rostra which stood in the Roman Forum). Click Edit > Copy (command + C).

Refer to the photo below.

This photo depicts step 3.

Fourth: Head back over to you InDesign document and right click inside of the rectangle you created in step 2. When the menu of options appears, you should click “Paste Into” so that your photo takes the shape of the rectangle you’ve created.

This photo depicts step 4.

Fifth: The photograph may appear like this (refer to the photo below) or other ways that just don’t please your artistic means. There is the perfect way to fix it that does not require you to be an expert in photograph resizing (and won’t leave your photo looking like it was put in a washer and dryer – all shrunken and stretched out at the same time.)

This photo depicts step 5.

Sixth: The magic step. Click the rectangle one > Right click inside the rectangle > Fitting > Fill Frame Proportionally OR Fit Content Proportionally (whichever best suits your means.) In my case, I will be using Fill Frame Proportionally.

This photo depicts step 6.

 

This is a properly placed photo that is not stretched out any which way.

This is a photo that has been widened in an attempt to make it fit the frame properly.

This photo has been lengthened in an attempt to make it fit the frame properly.

I believe that every draft of any design project needs to be made as though it were the final one. That being said, properly inserting photographs into a document is a very important skill that can be easily mastered.

From PAMM to Pincho Factory to Pembroke Lakes

Though this has been a very busy summer, it has also been kind of uneventful. By uneventful I mean not many fun adventures with friends, like every teenagers wishes their summer would be.

SIDE NOTE: Other than eventful in my own personal life, Thursday was also a very eventful day for the world. The Dallas shooting left five police officers dead and seven injured after a peaceful protest following the deaths of two black men at the hands of police officers. This impacted more than just the United States, but the world. People everywhere are responding with positive thoughts for those that feel oppressed and celebrities are pressuring law makers to finally make a move in the right direction. The events on Thursday shifted the conversation a little bit away from police brutality to overall violence. Three (very impacting, for the whole country) shootings in such  short time span should not become the norm.

This past Thursday my friends and I decided to make some memories and headed out to the Perez Art Museum Miami. There we saw Doris Salcedo’s exhibit and even took part in a hands-on activity (mostly for children aged 5 – 10), sewing our very own depiction of the horrors of the world.

After a nice photo session in the perfectly lighting that provided that cloudless day, we headed to Pincho Factory. Maria  saw an advertisement for their ‘Toston Burger’ and that opened everyone’s appetite so much we had to go try it out. Final verdict: it was good I was extremely full and still wanted to eat another one. Oh, that and the ranch sauce, cheese, and bacon topped fries we had.

Then onto some shopping at Pembroke Lakes mall. As part of a quite uneventful summer I have planned quite an event to attend – a wedding. The mall was not just strictly shopping though. It would not be any kind of exaggeration if I were to say that Maria, Stephanie and I played with makeup for about a whole hour at the Macy’s makeup counter.

It was a fun day filled with laughs and photos and good memories.

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By the way, don’t you just love the alliteration in that title?