Clipping Drop Shadows in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

On my Mordy.com blog, I made note of my quest to create an iPhone skin entirely in Illustrator. In the process, one of the elements I had to create – the alert dialog – presented an interesting “problem” in that the dialog had an opaque stroke and a transparent fill. OK, so we know that in Illustrator, you can easily apply an opacity setting to fills and strokes independently, but the dialog also has a drop shadow. And if the fill of the object is transparent, you can see the drop shadow through the fill, which isn’t called for in the design.



Before we learn how to make this work in Illustrator, let’s take a look at two other Adobe applications – Photoshop and InDesign. Why? Because interestingly enough, they both have something that Illustrator doesn’t have.

Photoshop has two opacity settings: Layer Opacity, which applies to the entire layer, including its layer effects; and Fill Opacity, which applies only to the pixels that are drawn in the layer, and not its layer effects.



In our example, if we wanted to create an object that had a transparent fill and a drop shadow, we’d first apply a drop shadow layer effect. But we wouldn’t want to reduce the Layer Opacity, because that would lower the opacity of the drop shadow along with the art itself. Instead, we’d adjust the Fill Opacity, which will allow the just the art to be transparent, leaving the drop shadow at full strength.

But notice that the drop shadow isn’t visible through the art of the object itself. It’s as if the artwork “knocks out” the drop shadow beneath it. How did that happen? The answer lies within the Drop Shadow section of the Layer Styles dialog box. There you’ll find a checkbox marked “Layer Knocks Out Drop Shadow”, which is turned on by default.



If you head over to InDesign, you’ll find a similar option in the Drop Shadow section of the Effects dialog box as well. There, a setting called “Object Knocks Out Shadow”, also on by default, helps designers keep drop shadows from being seen through objects with transparency settings such as opacity or blend modes.



Now let’s come full circle back to Illustrator, where the Drop Shadow dialog box (found in the Effects > Stylize menu) has no setting to instruct Illustrator to knock out the effect, and we’ll create the iPhone dialog step by step.*

1. Use the Rectangle tool to draw a shape. If you’d like, choose Effect > Stylize > Round Corners to round the corners of the rectangle.

2. Fill the rectangle with a dark blue color and choose a light blue color for the stroke.

3. Choose Window > Appearance to open the Appearance panel (and shame on you if the panel wasn’t already open). Target the dark blue fill and change its opacity to 80%.



4. Click on the word “Path” at the top of the Appearance panel to target the entire object.

5. Choose Effect > Stylize > Drop Shadow, and apply your desired drop shadow settings. At this point, you’ll be able to see the drop shadow through the fill of the object. But we’ll fix that next.

6. With the object still selected, open the Transparency panel and expand it so that all of its options are visible. Check the box marked Knockout Group (you may need to click twice to get a check mark in the box).



If you want to know WHY the Knockout Group setting effectively clipped the drop shadow, you can read my explanation in this post, where I used a similar technique to simulate stitched lines for apparel designers.

I should point out that when I asked Adobe why Illustrator didn't have a check box in the Drop Shadow dialog box that would clip an object's shadow, I got an interesting response: "the real world doesn't really work that way". I can't argue with that logic. If you think about it, if an object were semi transparent, it would likely still be dense enough to cast a shadow beneath it. I'll have to pose the question to the folks over at Apple who designed the interface I guess.

One final note: the Object Knocks Out Shadow found in InDesign will only work when your entire object has an opacity setting applied to it. However, if you try to simulate this exact effect in InDesign, where you apply an opacity value just to the fill of an object, you’ll have to use the same technique as we used in Illustrator – you’ll have to turn on the Knockout Group option for that object.

*OK, so in the final version of the iPhone alert dialog, I had to do a little adjusting. Turns out that the opaque stroke that appears around the perimeter of the dialog is actually filled with a gradient. Alas, gradients can’t be applied to a stroke in Illustrator. I had to create a separate compound path in order to apply the gradient.

TECHNIQUE: Unembedding Images

Most people are aware that Illustrator allows you to place raster-based images (i.e., photographs) into your document. When doing so, you can choose to have that image linked or embedded. Likewise, once an image is already linked, you can choose to embed that image at any time by selecting the image on your artboard and clicking on the Embed button in the Control panel.

In my book, I detail the pros and cons of linking vs. embedding, but above that discussion is a request that I hear often enough. There are times when you have an image that is embedded in an Illustrator document, and you want to unembed that image. How does one go about doing that? This can be especially useful when you receive a file from someone else, and there are embedded images which you'd like to process or touch up in Photoshop.

In the past, there have been plugins or scripts that have come and gone to help with this specific task, but Jean Claude Tremblay has brought a technique to my attention that I was not aware of. It's actually pretty awesome if you ask me. For those who don't know, Jean Claude (JC as he's known amongst friends) is the Technical Editor of the Real World Illustrator book (including the soon-to-be-published CS4 edition). The technique is simple, straightforward, and utilizes a setting in Photoshop that I was not previously aware of. Let's take a look.

1. If your file contains embedded images, simply save the file as a Native Illustrator Document file (.AI). In the Illustrator Options dialog box that appears, make sure the Create PDF Compatible File option is checked.

2. In Photoshop, choose File > Open and choose the Illustrator file you just saved. The Import PDF dialog box appears, because as you've learned before, Photoshop sees the embedded PDF file.

3. At the top left of the Import PDF dialog box are two options: Pages, and Images. We don't want to place the entire page here, we just want the images, so choose the Images option. Photoshop will then display thumbnails of all of the embedded images that are in the file. You can hold down the Shift key to select multiple images. Click OK to open each image as its own individual Photoshop file.



4. Use Save As to store the images on your hard drive or server.

What's great about this technique is that the images open in Photoshop at their original size and resolution -- even if they have been scaled in the Illustrator document.

Illustrator is just "standard"

In today's world, we often spend much of our time comparing things, or trying to figure out who is best. In my home town (especially this coming weekend), the news is filled with Mets vs Yankees. Today's local newspaper dedicated two full pages to a position by position comparison of both teams, and who had the edge for each one. TV is filled with things like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and more. In the design community, we've spent years comparing Apple to Microsoft, Adobe to Macromedia, Syquest to Bernoulli, Type 1 to TrueType, PageMaker to Quark, Quark to InDesign, etc.

The latest "drama" to unfold is Adobe's announcement earlier this week, finally putting an end to the one thing that most people probably already knew anyway, but just didn't want to accept -- that FreeHand would not see another version.

While FreeHand users have never been silent in the past, when John Nack posted Adobe's intentions on his blog, FreeHand users once again have stepped up to defend their beloved program.

I do agree (quite strongly I might add) with one of John's statements. In response to those who claim Adobe "killed" FreeHand, John replies:

Well, you can blame Adobe, but not in the way you think: FH steadily lost market share to Illustrator, and Macromedia realized that rather than fight that uphill battle, they'd be better off funding other efforts. As far as I can tell, the FH codebase had been essentially dormant for 2.5 years before Adobe took ownership. So, blame Illustrator for surpassing FH in the market, leading to the current situation, but don't blame Adobe for not reviving a dormant app.

The reality is that Macromedia killed FreeHand way before Adobe even had the chance to do so. In fact, if I remember correctly, when I came on board as product manager for Illustrator in early 2001, FreeHand had 14% marketshare worldwide. At the time, I no longer considered FreeHand even as a competitor anymore, and instead saw older versions of Illustrator as competition instead (many users stuck with Illustrator 8 because of how fast it was and because it didn't have "transparency" issues at the time).

But as I mentioned before, we live in a world where we feel the need to compare things. And so, it's easy to say that FreeHand is better at this, or that Illustrator is better at that. There's no question that FreeHand has some great functionality, and that Adobe simply MUST consider moving much of that functionality over to Illustrator. But that's a discussion we can have at a different time. At present, I thought I'd take a different stand -- something which I think is more productive in the present -- because it can help users NOW (not in some unnamed versions in the future).

The reality is that many users are making a decision (either willfully or not) to make the move from FreeHand to Illustrator. While there are a handful of resources available to help people make that adjustment (some developed by yours truly), I thought I'd present five specific features that appear in Illustrator that have no equal (or aren't present at all) in FreeHand. In fact, I'll tell you that I rely on these five features quite heavily. And while I may miss a feature here or a feature there from FreeHand (I was a FreeHand user before I moved to Illustrator), the time lost because those features are not in Illustrator pale in comparison to how much time I now save because these five features are present in Illustrator today.

To make a point, I have chosen five features that are specifically NOT new in Illustrator CS3. The features I list here have been in Illustrator for at least two versions now, so I've come to rely on them heavily and can't possibly ever imagine giving them up for anything else -- even paste inside :)

To make an additional point, I've found that these specific features share an interesting theme -- as they are all build around standards. Standards are important, and most designers I know have to deal with many kinds of files with many kinds of demands and with many kinds of deadlines. And Adobe's commitment to standards throughout Illustrator (and all of it's other programs for that matter), have only helped me in my work.

While you can argue that it's easier to select objects in FreeHand, these are five things that I do in Illustrator many many times each day, and ultimately save more time in the end.

PDF

While it was only a few years ago that I was pulling matchprint proofs, color keys, and dye-sub prints for my clients, today it's all about PDF. And while I fondly remember the days of racing across the city to drop my camera-ready ad for a newspaper to the latest Fed-Ex drop off in the city, I don't even think twice now when I send my files via email or upload them to a printer's FTP site (remember trying to jam just one more Syquest cartridge into that fedex envelope?).

The reality is that Illustrator's support of PDF and the standards built on it (PDF/X) are something I simply could not live without. Whether I'm sending a quick proof to a client or creating a high-res PDF for press, I can rely on using Illustrator for that. And since Illustrator can also OPEN any PDF file, I have the ability to edit or use content that I once might have had to redraw on my own from scratch.

I create so many PDF files each day, and while you can certainly create PDF from FreeHand, you don't have NEAR the robust support that you would have in FreeHand. That's why support for the PDF standard is reason number one for why I can't look back.

OpenType

It wasn't pretty for Illustrator users when CS came around with its brand-new text engine. Migrating older files to the new version was painful, and for workflows that demanded moving files between CS and non-CS versions, a nightmare ensued. But there's no arguing that the modern Unicode-based text engine in Illustrator has made a world of difference in the work I do today. Better language support, better global support, and most importantly, better cross-platform support, means that files that I create can be used around the world, and likewise I can use files from almost anywhere.

I have clients with office around the world, and who need to create documents that people can read anywhere on any device. And Adobe support for the OpenType standard means that I can deliver that promise. It also means that I can incorporate the creative advantages of OpenType into my work. I used to spend my day trying to get documents with crazy fonts to work across multiple machines in my own offices and in my client's offices around the world. And I can't begin to explain how often I'd be on the phone with a client who claimed their PDF contained all these boxes on their screen where text was supposed to appear, when the file obviously looked perfectly fine on my screen. I can't go back there -- and so OpenType support (and Illustrator's professional-level typography in general) is reason number two for why I am not looking in the rear view mirror, but have my eyes firmly locked on the road ahead.

XMP

I'll admit that when Adobe first announced their support for the XMP standard, I thought it would only be interesting for huge businesses or news agencies (like the Associated Press). But here I am, publishing content and creating new files every day. My hard drive is filled with files that I create or update every day. And I work with others. And they have their hundreds and thousands of files. Metadata becomes increasingly more important.

On my own, I have also found myself publishing files and posting them for others to benefit from. With XMP I can store copyright information in my files. I can provide information above and beyond the content that appears within the file itself. And XMP metadata enables much more in the way of scripting, integration with digital asset management systems, and products like Adobe's Version Cue and the Adobe Stock Photos service. These days, I can't afford not to have this information, and probably couldn't function without XMP in most of my files. This is why XMP is reason number three (it rhymes).

Integration

So this is admittedly a broad category. I originally meant to label it as integration with the industry-standard application for photographic editing -- Adobe Photoshop. But then again, Illustrator is a best-of-class citizen when it comes to integration with almost all of the programs I use on a day to day basis. Illustrator has always excelled here, and besides for the ability to export layered PSD files with many items intact (layers, editable text, opacity, clipping masks, slices, etc.), you can of course also bring layered content with all that goodness from Photoshop back into Illustrator as well. Add After Effects to the list here, as I use that often enough. I am also holding back from mentioning Flash here -- only because Illustrator to Flash workflows were never pretty until CS3 came along (although in CS3, Illustrator to Flash integration is probably the best example of cross-product integration that I've ever seen between ANY product -- with the possible lone exception of the Dynamic Link feature found between After Effects and Premiere Pro).

I use so many applications every day and work on so many projects that I can't see limiting myself to trying to force one application to do it all. I use whatever I can have available to me at the time to get my work done, and Illustrator enables that. I can't imagine using anything else. Chalk integration up as the fourth reason for my loyalty to Illustrator.

Save for Web

I'm trying to think of a feature I use more often than Save for Web in Illustrator (it has been renamed Save for Web & Devices in CS3). I also could never believe that FreeHand never moved to offer this kind of functionality. In the world we live in today, I'm repurposing graphics all the time. Nothing gives me near the functionality that Save for Web does. One can argue that you can do all of that stuff in Photoshop, but the whole point is that I can get it done so quickly in Illustrator directly.

And it goes beyond just saving out a GIF or a JPEG here and there for a website. Clients need logos that appear in their proprietary database programs, wallpaper for their cell phones, icons for their digital displays in their windows, etc. I also use Save for Web to quickly crank out art for screenshots or for posting illustrations on my blog. Or for generating still frames for podcasts, movie clips, or animations. It's a workhorse, and it does SWF animations too. How can you beat that? A part of me died inside when Adobe lopped off ImageReady (the actual codebase for Save for Web), but for most of what I need on a daily basis, I need Save for Web. And that's reason number five.

Adobe extends Photoshop

Well, it seems the announcements are coming fast and furious these days -- as we march closer and closer to the March 27th Creative Suite 3 launch date.

First, Adobe has offered this link where you'll be able to watch the webcast of the announcement in New York. I've been invited to attend the event in person, so I'll try to wave to all of you watching online :)

Second, Adobe has announced that they will be releasing two versions of Photoshop: Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended. The Photoshop CS3 product will pretty much be the version you've already seen since the beta was released late last year. The Extended version will basically add features that are needed specifically in the area of 3D, Video, and Science and Engineering/Analysis. More detail can be found at these links:

- John Nack's blog
- More info from Adobe
- Adobe Press Release

PEN 02.07 - Photoshop & Illustrator Integration

Copying text and vector shapes between Illustrator and Photoshop, Layer Comps, Export as PSD, Crop Area, and another segment of Trivial Pursuit: Adobe Edition.
- Video Podcast
- Sorry, no PDF for this episode.

Busting the Myth: achieving consistent color across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

Plenty has been written about the holy grail of color consistency -- getting your screen and your print output to match across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign (and Acrobat too). Adobe themselves will even talk about the newer setting in Bridge or in Adobe Creative Suite 2 in general which allows you to synchronize your color settings across the suite. And the nice thing is that it works -- for the most part.

But even with these settings, we still find those out there who complain of colors not matching. Mainly, these are files that include spot colors. I've seen some people talk about these issues, and I've seen a few suggestions for solving the issue as well. In fact, it always seems that spot colors throws a wrench into the workflows we depend on every day. A while back I discussed how spot colors and transparency can present some unexpected results (and I presented a solution to the issue).

I've touched on the real solution to this problem before, but only in smaller specific cases. Here, I hope to present a clear understanding of these settings that accomplish three very important things:

1. Your spot color plates are preserved.

2. The integrity of your spot color CMYK values are preserved should you choose to convert your spots to process late in the workflow.

3. Your onscreen proofs AND your composite proof prints that contain spot colors will match accurately across Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

I'll start by saying that some have offered solutions of switching the spot color definitions in Illustrator or InDesign to use LAB values (which match Photoshop) -- but this can be VERY dangerous and results in the loss of number 2 mentioned above. Sure, we all know that a designer should use spot and process colors as needed, but we also know that many designers will spec spot colors (either because it's easier to do so by picking them from a book, or because they don't know any better). In addition, printers may convert spots to process late in workflows as job specs change under deadline. Item 2 listed above can often mean the difference between a job that prints correctly or one that must be reprinted (and at who's cost?).

UNDERSTANDING BOOK COLOR

So first, let's understand something that was introduced to Adobe Creative Suite 2: Book Color. You may notice that at times, a swatch will show up in Illustrator CS2 as something called a "book color". This occurs in InDesign CS2 as well, and here in the United States, you'll find it most often when you specify Pantone colors. So what is this book color setting? Well, here's the story: one of the reasons why we use spot colors is simply because there are colors that simply aren't reproducable in CMYK. Bright blues, purples, greens and oranges are perfect examples. But you also know that there are CMYK conversions of these Pantone spot colors. Pantone delivers an entire Excel spreadsheet to Adobe that lists each Pantone color, along with their LAB color equivalents. Obviously, the LAB color values match closer to the real color. Pantone also delivers a Solid to Process library which specifies the CMYK values of Pantone colors. Obviously, the latter is far less accurate and results in color shifts (and if you're paying attention, you know that by default, Photoshop uses the LAB values and AI, ID, and Acrobat use the CMYK values, which means that placing PS content into the other apps can result in color shifts).

Traditionally, a single swatch can only contain a single color definition. Since Illustrator or InDesign always used the CMYK values, proofing spot colors from these apps -- either on screen or on a composite proof -- was less than desirable. Especially considering the statement made in the previous paragraph, color shifts are also common due to this.

A book color swatch is a swatch that contains BOTH the LAB and the CMYK values of a spot color. In this way, Adobe can be more intelligent and use the values that are best for the situation. But there's a catch. You need to specifically tell Illustrator (or InDesign or Acrobat) that you want to use one value or another for the task at hand. But the important thing here is that you don't want to choose one OVER the other -- you always want to have both at your disposal. By this I mean, when you are actually printing and separating as a spot color, you want the best possible proof. But when you decide late in your workflow to convert your spot to process, you don't care about the LAB value -- you care about the CMYK breakdown and the consistency of that breakdown with other artwork, apps, etc. If you instruct your app to use the LAB color space for your swatch, then if you ever convert your spot to process, you get a LAB to Process conversion -- NOT the CMYK breakdown that the spot color manufacturer has specified in their book.

So what do you do? You use a feature that you would normally never imagine would have anything at all to do with this.

OVERPRINT PREVIEW TO THE RESCUE

OverPrint Preview is a wonderful feature that exists in Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat. But it's the worst named feature ever to grace those programs. That's because you might think that OPP only simulates or displays any overprint commands on your screen (which is very helpful). But it also goes a step further and uses a different algorithm for displaying spot colors. When you have a book color specified, we discussed that the swatch contains both LAB and CMYK values. In normal Preview mode, AI, ID, and ACRO all use the CMYK values for displaying the colors on your screen. But when OPP is turned on, the apps display those colors on the screen using the LAB values in the swatch.

So the first thing we've learned is that if you want to see consistent spot colors on your screen across all of your applications, don't touch the swatches -- rather change your preview mode by turning Overprint Preview on. This way, the integrity of the swatch remains, but you're basically instructing your application to display the color on your screen using the more accurate and consistent LAB values.

But the question is, what about composite proofing? I understand that I can use OPP to SEE my colors in a consistent way on screen, but how can I also get color proofs without color shifts? The answer is...

SIMULATE OVERPRINT

I always wondered why if I create a file without any overprints in it, I can go to the Print dialog and see that the Simulate Overprint command is available. If there are no overprints present, the item should be grayed out, no? The answer is that when you turn on simulate overprint in the Print dialog, the same thing is happening as we discussed above with Overprint Preview. The printer is using the LAB values for the color, not the CMYK values.

So the second thing we've learned is, if you want to see consistent spot colors on your composite proof prints, turn Simulate Overprint on in the Print dialog box. Again, this feature is available in AI, ID, and ACRO.

If you use OPP and Simulate OP, then you never lose the CMYK definition of the color that was specified by the book manufacturer, so it's always safe to convert to process at any time in the workflow if necessary.

In closing, you can ask why AI or ID even allow users to switch their spot colors to use only the LAB equivalents at all, if based on what you read here, it's such a bad thing. The answer is that in a color managed workflow, printers or RIPs may be able to better match spot colors to specific press or paper stock conditions when going straight from LAB. So I would strongly suggest that if you do want to use the methods described by others (such as Steve Werner's suggestion which I've linked to above), you first speak with your printer -- or you make sure to never convert your spots to process.