Need To Learn InDesign Fast

[EnhanceReality]

I already know Photoshop, but I need to learn inDesign for a new job and FAST. I'd like to find some good fast-paced video tutorials. Lynda just annoys me (I don't need to learn how to import graphics or transform objects). Basically I'd like to watch a pro run through creating a few high quality presentations start to finish. Does anyone have an idea where I should look?

[Stix_Hart]

EnhanceReality wrote:

I don't need to learn how to import graphics or transform objects)

Sorry to burst your bubble but you do need to know how to do those things sooner or later to create a presentation, although I can appreciate that Lynda would go into far too much detail for what you're wanting.  IMHO you're going to have to be prepared to put in a day or so at least depending on your computer savvy before you'll be much use with it, I reckon Adobe's classroom in a book series might suit you better, you can go through them as fast as you can take it in.

How about getting a template to start off with, try www.stockindesign.com for a great range of free ones or stockoayouts.com have a bigger range but you have to pay.

[EnhanceReality]

Thanks for the links. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind your quote. What I meant by "I don't need to learn how to.." is that its something I certainly already know, and perhaps I should have been more specific than the vague statement that "I already know Photoshop". I've been a professional restoration artist for a few years and I do a lot of design recreationally with PS CS5. I'm a young guy and I'd pit my learning curve against just about anyone, and I just want to see how its done, fast and efficiently. I don't have time for lynda and so many of the other very basic tutorials I've been able to find. Thanks for the tips.

[Joel Cherney]

I'm with you on hating Lynda, but I generally hate tutorial videos in general unless I'm a complete noob. I wish they were all subtitled so I could watch 'em at 3x speed.

That being said, you'll find that InDesign has a very different toolset and a lot of your Photoshop knowledge will not be portable. In fact, it'll be to your detriment at first. In fact, you don't "import" graphics into ID at all, you place files, and the content remains outside of InDesign, and you need to maintain the relationship in the file heirarchy between the INDD and the graphics file which you placed into it. (But doing so is optional with placed text content.) Did you already know this? Because I know very little about PS, but I do know that its import-graphics functionality doesn't operate the same way as does InDesign. At all. Similarly, although layers do exist in InDesign, but they don't work the same way as they do in PS, and you use them for very different purposes.

Honestly, probably your best bet is to a) spend some time looking at the posts here, and on places like indesignsecrets.com, and b) trying stuff in a DIY fashion and asking about it here. Stix' suggestion to grab some stock files and pull 'em apart is a good one.

Also: InDesign has mostly been a print design app for most of its existence, and the presentation-related tools are kind of new, and therefore you won't find as much about them online as you will about specifically print-related stuff. It'd be nice to know exactly what you meant: are you going to be making training presentations that get packaged as PDFs?  Are you planning on exporting .swf?

[EnhanceReality]

I hear you on tutorials. When I find something I like I rip it then speed it up. I didn't know that fact about importing objects in InDesign. I do need to just screw around with it. I probably won't be dealing with the features associated with web-content (interactivity, effects) very much. It sounds like it'll mostly be magazine ads, brochures, things of that sort.

[Stix_Hart]

Ah sorry, I misunderstood your "don't need to learn how" comment, but Joel has the right take on it.  InDesign does work differently than PhotoShop, as an ID user I find the way PS works in importing other images to be unintuitive and clunky, you might find the same with ID!  Therefore most of my earlier comments still stand.

[peter_minneapolis]

EnhanceReality wrote:

Thanks for the links. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind your quote. What I meant by "I don't need to learn how to.." is that its something I certainly already know, and perhaps I should have been more specific than the vague statement that "I already know Photoshop". I've been a professional restoration artist for a few years and I do a lot of design recreationally with PS CS5. I'm a young guy and I'd pit my learning curve against just about anyone, and I just want to see how its done, fast and efficiently. I don't have time for lynda and so many of the other very basic tutorials I've been able to find. Thanks for the tips.

If you haven't seen MIchael Murphy's videos at theindesigner.com, take a look. IMO they're efficient.

[EDIT] The totaltraining.com Adobe CS videos I saw a few years back were intensely-packed with how to do professional stuff. For example, the ID series included ink management, laying out die-cut pieces, and other non-trivial tasks. Then they were DVD-only; now there are other options. [/EDIT]

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

Message was edited by: peter at knowhowpro

[EnhanceReality]

Thanks peter at knowhowpro. I'll check that out.

[Stix_Hart]

Reading all the extra info I still think the Adobe CIB would suit you but the only real way to learn is with projects, for example get a PDF of a brochure or something, then task yourself to replicate that.  Of course you would use different logos and images etc...

Another tip, this forum is by far the best way to get advice on specifics in InDesign, and as you've found anyone who seems condescending is probably not and has just misunderstood your question.

[Peter Spier]

I used to teach using the CIB as a text in my college-level courses, but the last time I used it was for CS4 and I haven't gone through the lessons in the current edition. I found it excellent as a classroom book, but less so for someone on their own. At the time there were som faily egregious errors or ommisions scattered here and there, and some of the lesson files were very poorly constructed, which all provided excellent "teaching moments." Unfortunately, it also meant that users on their own without an experienced guide frequently wound up here looking for help when something didn't work the way it was supposed to. I will say, that I don't think we've seen so much of that since CS5, but I can't swear it's because the books are better.

[Stix_Hart]

Good points actually, I last used a CS2 version, and I noticed on CS4 that they hadn’t bothered to update the look of it…

[Guest]

It wouldn't have been quite as cool in the Matrix movie if Neo had said, after they unplugged him from his plug-in training session, "I know InDesign."

[winterm]

well, I think, there is at least one thing, common for PS and ID - both are endless in their possibilities and combinations. Just like chess. You can go different ways everyday, pursuing the same goals... And there's almost nothing you do, that cannot be done yet a bit smarter.

[Peter Spier]

I've been staying out of this up to now, but I can't hold myself back any longer.

Do you have any experience in print production in Photoshop? Do you know the differences between spot and process colors, and RGB, CMYK, and Lab spaces? Do you understand resolution and resampling, and when it's OK and when it's not? Do you know what bleed is? Imposition? Do you understand color management?

How about working with styles and master pages? Those concepts don't exist in Photoshop.

There is a lot more to using InDesign for print than just putting text and pretty pictures on a page, and if you think you don't need to understand the printing porocess, or that you can learn it in five minutes, you should start your job search for a new position now.

[EnhanceReality]

Peter Spier wrote:

I've been staying out of this up to now, but I can't hold myself back any longer.

Do you have any experience in print production in Photoshop? Do you know the differences between spot and process colors, and RGB, CMYK, and Lab spaces? Do you understand resolution and resampling, and when it's OK and when it's not? Do you know what bleed is? Imposition? Do you understand color management?

How about working with styles and master pages? Those concepts don't exist in Photoshop.

There is a lot more to using InDesign for print than just putting text and pretty pictures on a page, and if you think you don't need to understand the printing porocess, or that you can learn it in five minutes, you should start your job search for a new position now.

Let's see, I'm currently a digital restoration artist so... yeah, definitely have "experience in print production in Photoshop". As for the rest of your inqueries: sure do; that's an affirmative; not sure (probably not as well as you if I do); actually, yes; that's a new one; color management is pretty much my job description; and lastly styles and master pages is not a complicated concept at all, which is exactly my point. A quick demonstration is enough to pick up most of this stuff, though perhaps not for some folks (I can only assume so by your apparent incredulousness). I do not have a degree or any kind of Adobe certification. I got my current job by a try-out process in which I beat out hundreds of applicants with college degrees. I didn't think it would be necessary to turn this into a discussion about me personally (afterall, I was only looking for resources and hoped a few of the folks here would have some ideas), but suffice it to say I'm not your average design student.

I'm not suggesting that I'm going to be an expert at it in no time, but I will be proficient with InDesign by this time next week, one way or another. No one said anything about "five minutes". Idealy, I could spend somewhere around a total 20 hours observing a few professionals working at their actual speed. And let me assure you, regardless of my InDesign experience, the new job I'm referring to is mine on the basis of my skills as they are; I'd simply like to enhance my value to the company (as I thought any employee would want to), and they had mentioned InDesign. To you and "lilia@", don't let your insecurity get the best of you, you're still cool InDesign geeks and no upstart is just going to jump in and be as cool as you with all your InDesign know-how. If your whole purpose in commenting is to make feeble attempts at condecending to some stranger, might I suggest you visit YouTube. Plenty of like-minded trolls for you to enjoy correspondence with there.

I appreciate any and all CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, though for those for whom this post makes you "LMAO", I suppose I'm glad I could make your day more entertaining.

[Peter Spier]

I'm not trying to be a troll here. We don't know anything about you or your background, other than you say you are impatient. I've met lots of users, even experienced ones, whose opinions of their skills were vastly overblown.

I'm a learn by observation sort of person, myself, and I don't like video training either. I learned the jewelry trade as a younger person by sitting next to guys with years of trade experience, and I learned finish carpentry by working with a pro for six months, and I made a living in both of those trades (and was well respected for my skills) before taking up graphics. I thought I knew a lot about DTP after a few courses and talked may way into a job at a local printer (apparently nobody else applied). I found out very quickly what I didn't know. I would say it took me two years of on-the-job training -- figuring out and fixing other people's mistakes so I could make their files print -- to get to the point where I could make a file that could be handed off to a printer and it wouldn't need some sort of corrective action.

I don't doubt your photoshop skills. I don't know waht you mean by "resoration artist," but if it means salvaging old photos, enhancing images, and the like, that's great, but it isn't print production, it's image restoration. That's a valuable skill, but it won't make your InDesign files print as you expect them too. It's also not color management, which is involved in matching color across different output media and devices. Perhaps you have those skills, too.

You sound like a bright person, and a "quick demonstration" may really be enough for you. I hope so, but don't deceive yourself too much. InDesign is actually quite a bit more complex than Photoshop, and working for print is more complex than the appearance on your screen.

Good luck.

[EnhanceReality]

With perhaps only minor exceptions, I have to give it to you: right on all accounts Mr Spier. I can't really argue with anything in your response, and it sounds like we relate in how we learn. I'll also ad that this gives me a few solid points to research. I appreciate that.

I need to bring this back to the original topic though: if anyone knows of a good source for these kind of demo videos, please let me know. And thanks again to those who have already shared links.

[Peter Spier]

I can't offer any suggestions for video, but if you want a good printed reference, I don't think you'll find one better than Real World InDesign. It has some basics in the front of the book, but it also covers very advanced material and goes into great depth in later chapters. It is NOT a book I recommend to most beginners, but I think you will find it helpful and you don't sound like someone who is afraid of a 500 page reference. Not only does it cover a lot of technical material in plain English, it offers real world advice on why some of the myriad ways of doing things might be better than others, based on the authors' years of working in the field and with InDesign.

[Guest]

LMAO @ a quickie!

Seriously? If lynda.com bores you and you can't be bothered to learn a program... may I suggest... a job in a different industry?

No way would I want someone that doesnt't know what they're doing to do work for me.

Would you take your car to a shonky repairer?

Learn the program, it will be worth it, even if you must miss out on this job... Sheesh