• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Copy and paste transparency from Photoshop to InDesign

Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi all, I've recently started to learn InDesign and I was surprised to realize that when I'm simultaneously editing images in PS and pasting them to ID, it doesn't paste transparency, it always adds a white background in the box frame of the object. the problem can be solved if I go onto clipping path and select Detect edges or if once I cut out the object on PS I save it as a .tiff file.

This only happens on a Windows computer, because I've used InDesign on a Mac and when I cut the background out of an image in Photoshop, and paste it onto InDesign, the transparency is automatically detected, without me having to create a clipping path.


Is there a way to make it automatic for InDesign to detect transparency when copying and pasting objects from Photoshop?


thanks.

Views

9.1K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

InDesign creates Links to the original image when you correctly place them.

You can:

  • Choose File > Place
  • Drag from Bridge
  • Drag from Mac Finder / Windows File Explorer
  • Drag or Option (Alt) drag from a Creative Cloud library
  • Drag from an InDesign library

You can't:

  • Copy and paste from another program

If you have brought in your images correctly, you will see them in the Links panel. What do you see in the Links panel?

Votes

Translate

Translate
Participant ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi,

The best way is to use PSD, TIFF or PNG formats (to preserve transparency) from PS and import (Ctrl/Cmd + D) in InDesign.

Copy/paste isn't the best approach to apply image in InDesign.

Regards

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

That's what I want to avoid really. When I'm working with multiple images, it's quite time consuming having to save the images one by one, look for their location on the hard drive and place them every time I want to add a cut-out image. I have managed to use the clipping path->detect edges function to overcome, but I'm worried this might make the document too heavy to work with if I apply that to every image.

However all this doesn't happen on InDesign for Mac 😕

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Guide ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Do not use the Windows clipboard ( copy > paste).

Use File > Place.

clipboard.png

Fenja

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

InDesign creates Links to the original image when you correctly place them.

You can:

  • Choose File > Place
  • Drag from Bridge
  • Drag from Mac Finder / Windows File Explorer
  • Drag or Option (Alt) drag from a Creative Cloud library
  • Drag from an InDesign library

You can't:

  • Copy and paste from another program

If you have brought in your images correctly, you will see them in the Links panel. What do you see in the Links panel?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

is creating a clipping path good practice to get rid of background?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It was in 1997. Now? I’d just use a PSD, TIF or PNG with transparent background.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Bob, what do you do if the image does not have a transparent background?

Deleting what you don't want is destructive editing. Drawing a named path or saving a selection are non-destructive and are supported by InDesign.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

In Photoshop, make a copy of it, put it on a new layer and turn the layer off.

I hate clipping paths. Don’t remember the last time I ever used one and the idea of drawing one in InDesign where you’re working on a proxy (even at hi res) is not something I ever want to think about.

As always, YMMV.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

how come copy and paste transparency works with InDesign on a Mac? is that just a Windows fault? i really think saving an image every time I cut it out from its background is really time consuming adding that I don't really need the image file after its been placed on InDesign.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

how come copy and paste transparency works with InDesign on a Mac?

Check your InDesign Clipboard Preferences and check Prefer PDF When Pasting (on OSX the clipboard contents are always PDF). Pasting as PDF retains all of the objects original properties. There's not a quality problem with pasting (at least on OSX), but pasted objects are embedded and make it difficult to edit the original as well as bloating the file size.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Since you mentioned that you are just getting started with InDesign can you elaborate on what it is that you will most likely want to use it for... print or web or both?

Generally speaking one would Place not Paste when building documents using InDesign.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I literally use it only for uni at the moment, for laying out printable portfolios.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

adriano.lcf  wrote

I literally use it only for uni at the moment, for laying out printable portfolios.

Even so, you would be better off to start adapting best-practice workflows now. 

One major potential downfall of having your only version of the images embedded in your InDesign file: if your InDesign file becomes corrupt, you have lost not just the layout, but all of the work you've done.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

gotcha thanks a lot

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

  wrote

gotcha thanks a lot

I was just about to add that we can't force you to use best practices—we can only tell you what they are!

Best wishes,

Jane

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

adriano.lcf  wrote

Hi all, I've recently started to learn InDesign and I was surprised to realize that when I'm simultaneously editing images in PS and pasting them to ID,

https://indesignsecrets.com/copy-and-paste-vs-place.php

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Adobe Employee ,
Mar 13, 2018 Mar 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi

You can use CC Libraries for this purpose. You can simply add any graphic asset from Photoshop to a library and when you come to InDesign you can Place the graphic added from Photoshop to your document and it maintains a link to the originally added asset in the library. So, if you ever wish to update the asset, you could simply double click the asset and it will open in Photoshop for you to edit, and once you save it will be automatically updated in InDesign. This will maintain your transparency and you need not remember where on hard drive you saved your asset! Also, the libraries are on cloud, so, you will have access to these libraries on every system you login.

For more info about CC Libraries, go to Manage assets with Creative Cloud Libraries​.

Regards

Anasuiya Gupta

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Nov 30, 2018 Nov 30, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I would like to rephrase the question. Note: This is a Mac/PC issue; not a best practices/experience of designer issue.
The question is why does a copy/paste with transparency work on Mac and not PC. It there an extra step for Windows? Will this ever be possible in Windows? I think one person actually attempted to answer the question. Adriano might have a very good reason for not following best practices. I copy/paste a lot in InDesign for quick roughs, when I need to produce something with someone standing over my shoulder for a concept. I don't want editable links, and I don't want massive numbers of assets in a links folder. I don't have the option of spending the time it takes to create files I can link to. If the images are needed for the final product, I will do this later so images are best quality, editable, and produce small document sizes. That said, can someone answer the original question? And, btw, the "clipboard Handling PDF when pasting" does not work for me (thank you Rob).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 30, 2018 Nov 30, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

That said, can someone answer the original question? And, btw, the "clipboard Handling PDF when pasting" does not work for me (thank you Rob).

I've always suspected that the Prefer PDF When Pasting pref doesn't work on Windows given how adamant posters are about the evils of pasting. On OSX a pasted object exports with all of the qualities of a linked version—color mode, color profile, transparency, resolution. Unfortunately I think this is an OS and not an ID problem.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Dec 04, 2018 Dec 04, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

Yes, thank you. I am suffering through forced Windows 10 environment. It is killing my workflow. I will go the long route  to get transparency, then. Thank you for your answer.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines