Scale Problem

[Shelly Mellott]

Hello -
We've found an interesting problem with InDesign. in our design process, we place photos and scale the photo boxes until we are happy with the design. Then we go into Photoshop and size the photos properly. When we go back to Indesign and import the now properly-sized photo, the scaling in still applying to the box. The most frustrating thing about this is that the scale says 100%. There is no way to make the box just a box and not keep applying that scale.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, because now we have to delete the old picture box and make an entirely new one every time we work with a photo!!
Thanks
Shelly

[Dave Saunders]

As long as you didn't change the proportions when you resized in Photoshop, you can do Fit Content to Frame from the Object menu (Command+Option+E) to get the reimported image to fill the existing frame.

Actually, that'll work even if you did change the proportions, but the image will no longer be proportionaly scaled. In that case, you can use Fit Content Proportionally followed by Fit Frame to Content (perhaps with Center Content interspersed) to get as close as possible to where you want to be.

Dave

[Dave Saunders]

In that case, type 100 into the width field and then hold down Command when you hit enter, then do Fit Frame to Content (Command-Option-C).

Dave

[Dave Saunders]

Ah, I'm assuming you realize you need to select with the direct select tool (the hollow one). Also, make sure you have the appropriate proxy point selected (probably top left).

Dave

[Shelly Mellott]

Isn't that still technically applying a scale? I need the photo to be actual size with no scaling affect in InDesign. It causes errors at my printer.
Thanks
Shelly

[pako]

I would say: uncheck transform content, dimensions include strokewidth, transformations are totals and show content offset in the transform panel
(remember to experiment with these settings since they can be useful, I never really learned the exact way they work - my fault; my English is not superb)

Next: remember to not scale a pictureframe by percentages but by adjusting height/width and or adjusting with your mousepointer. Keep the percentages of the pictureframe 100%.

[rob day]

Shelly,
This happens when you use the Transfom tool to scale (as opposed to command+Shift+Select Tool, or Scale Tool) and it does seem like a questionable "feature". I use this script to reset the frame to 100% and then set the scale of the picture to the percentage:

tell application "InDesign 2.0.2"
try
set myFrame to item 1 of selection
set theProps to properties of myFrame

set thePercent to vertical scale of myFrame
set theRadius to the corner radius of myFrame
set theStroke to the stroke weight of myFrame

if image 1 of myFrame exists then
set myPic to image 1 of myFrame
set myVScale to absolute vertical scale of myPic
set myHScale to absolute horizontal scale of myPic
set picBounds to geometric bounds of myPic
end if

set theProps to {absolute vertical scale:nothing, vertical scale:100, absolute horizontal scale:nothing, horizontal scale:100} & theProps
set properties of myFrame to theProps
set the stroke weight of myFrame to thePercent * theStroke / 100
set the corner radius of myFrame to thePercent * theRadius / 100

if image 1 of myFrame exists then
set the absolute vertical scale of myPic to thePercent * myVScale / 100
set the absolute horizontal scale of myPic to thePercent * myHScale / 100
set the geometric bounds of myPic to picBounds
end if
on error
display dialog " Select the picture frame and try again"
end try
end tell

If you're interested, I also have a script which opens the picture into Photoshop and resizes, rotates, resamples to 300ppi, and positions the picture.
Rob

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Good grief, who wants to do all that to resize an image. You could type in the values faster than you could write and implement a script. Another thing I noticed, it's harder to copy an image from one picture box and paste into another. No matter if I select the box I want to paste into with the solid or open arrow, when I do command-V I get my image pasted in its own box, not in the box I selected.

[Marco Antonio SantaMaria]

Richard, you need to check how your keyboard shorcuts are sertup, or you cna chabge it to whatever you need. My option to paste into is set to Cmd+Opt+Cntrl+Z, my paste in place is Cmd+Cntrl+Z. I left the regular paste as Cmd+V.

Hope this helps.

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Why would I need to do any of that. If I select a box in Quark and paste, the image goes into that box. The same command should paste images or text into the selected box. If I copy and paste text into an existing text box, the text goes into that box. I don't get a new text box. Why should art be any different. Doesn't sound logical to have one command to place text into a box and a different one to place an image. It's a real pain when I have to move images from one location to another and I have to resize the box and/or image every time. Especially when I have a box the exact size and position I want it.

[Ronald Lanham]

If you're interested, I also have a script which opens the picture into Photoshop and resizes, rotates, resamples to 300ppi, and positions the picture.

Rob... I'm interested.

Would you post that please?

TIA

[rob day]

You can select either the picture or its frame and run this script. It opens the link in PS puts the image up on a layer named Photo, adjusts the canvas size to slightly larger than the ID picure frame, resizes the image to the ID scale, resamples to 300ppi, rotates to the ID rotation, and positions the image to the ID xy coordinates. If you want to include flattening uncomment the flatten command at the end of the script. I cut this out of a bigger script which steps through all the images in a doc, so I haven't used this version much, but it seems to work fine:

tell application "InDesign 2.0.2"
set myDoc to active document
tell myDoc
tell view preferences
set myOrigHorMeasurementUnits to get horizontal measurement units
set myOrigVerMeasurementUnits to get vertical measurement units
set horizontal measurement units to inches
set vertical measurement units to inches
end tell
end tell

try
set mySelection to item 1 of selection
set myClass to class of mySelection
if myClass is image then
set myLink to item link of mySelection
else
set myLink to item link of image 1 of mySelection
end if
on error
display dialog "Please select a picture before running this script."
return
end try

set myFileName to file path of myLink
--the picture box could be parent of myLink
set myFrame to parent of parent of myLink
set myPic to parent of myLink

--gets the pictures scale

set myVScale to absolute vertical scale of myPic
set myHScale to absolute horizontal scale of myPic

--gets the pictures rotation
set myRotation to absolute rotation angle of myPic

--gets the bounding box of both the picture and the picture box
set boxBounds to geometric bounds of myFrame

set picBounds to geometric bounds of myPic

--gets the dimension for the PS file
set boxRight to item 4 of boxBounds
set boxleft to item 2 of boxBounds
set boxTop to item 1 of boxBounds
set boxBottom to item 3 of boxBounds
set boxHeight to boxBottom - boxTop
set boxWidth to boxRight - boxleft
--for the picture offset relative to the frame
--picture center of bounds
set picX1 to item 2 of picBounds
set picY1 to item 1 of picBounds
set picX2 to item 4 of picBounds
set picY2 to item 3 of picBounds
set picXCenter to picX1 + ((picX2 - picX1) / 2)
set picYCenter to picY1 + ((picY2 - picY1) / 2)

--frame center of bounds
set boxX1 to item 2 of boxBounds
set boxY1 to item 1 of boxBounds
set boxX2 to item 4 of boxBounds
set boxY2 to item 3 of boxBounds
set boxXCenter to boxX1 + ((boxX2 - boxX1) / 2)
set boxYCenter to boxY1 + ((boxY2 - boxY1) / 2)

--offset of picture to frame
set hOff to picXCenter - boxXCenter
set vOff to picYCenter - boxYCenter

tell application "Adobe Photoshop 7.0"
activate
try
open myFileName
on error
display dialog " Update Indesign Links"
return
end try
--apply gathered variables to images here
tell current document
resize image width percent myHScale resample method none
resize image resolution 300 resample method bicubic
select all
copy
paste
set name of layer "Layer 1" to "Photo"
delete layer "Background"
resize canvas width boxWidth height boxHeight
rotate layer "Photo" angle -myRotation
end tell
tell layer "Photo" of current document
translate delta x hOff
translate delta y vOff
end tell
--tell current document
--flatten
--end tell
end tell
end tell

[rob day]

Ron,
After I posted the script I realized that if you don't have your Photoshop units set to inches the script will fail. So you should ad this:

set myRulers to ruler units of settings
set myRulers to inch units

after
Tell application "Adobe Photoshop 7.0"
activate

Rob

[Ronald Lanham]

Thanks Rob.

I have a large job that I'll try that on soon. (A duplicate of the project, of course, until I'm sure I know what I'm doing with it.)

Scripts that work are sure time savers.

[Richard Sohanchyk]

Mea Culpa. After rereading Rob's script I see that it could be a godsend for large projects. I do tons of booklets where I resize image in ID, then when all is perfect, I resize in PS to get as small an archive as possible. A LOT of handwork previously with text reragging all over the place. I'll give this script a go.

[rob day]

Richard, When I first started with ID I also found the complex cut and paste to be irritating, but I've come around to it—simply adding Option to Command-V when you have a picture box selected gives the same result as Quark. My memory is that if you paste in Quark without a box selected you just get beeped at—in ID you get the content in a nice tidy box, which can be convenient at times. Having the image and frame be distinctly different objects seems to make for a better scripting environment.

I haven't come around to the Transform tool applying the scale to the frame so you have a scenario where the box could be 123.04% and the picture could be 43.2% and only a gifted mathematician has clue what the real scale of the image is.

[Ronald Lanham]

rob

Nice site.

Is the photo link active?

[Marco Antonio SantaMaria]

The difference between a text frame and a picture frame when they are selected, is that when you select the text with the text toll you are inside the frame, so whatever you have in the clipboard will go straight into the frame. But if you use any of the selection tool (Black, white arrow) and then paste, the content of the clipboard will be paste it in a new text frame or picture frame, depending on what is inside the cilpboard.

When you select a picture frame, you are selecting the primary item (object) when it is empty so if you paste it will paste the content of the clipboard on the page.

We n eed to keep in mind that QXP and InDesign are two complete different horses, and because of their individuality we can not treat, ride, or expect them to behave the same way. Once we treat them as what they are, different applications, we will be able to enjoy the ride without getting frustated and what one or the other can or cnanot do.

[rob day]

Thanks Ron, The photo section is under construction—I ran out of gas building it this summer and then some real work came along...

[Ronald Lanham]

rob... yep... it can take quite a lot of time just to keep them updated.

[Marilyn Langfeld]

Hi Rob,

I just tried running the script in Script Editor. With the added two lines (re inches), I get the error, 'expected end of line, etc. but found identifier'. I took them back out, ran the script and got the error message, 'expected end of line, etc. but found class name' a few lines below, on the word document.

Any ideas for what I need to do?

[rob day]

Actually it turns out that—

set myRulers to ruler units of settings
set myRulers to inch units

doesn't work (I never tried it) it should be:

set ruler units of settings to inch units

Applescript is very fussy about how lines break, so sometimes when you cut and paste from your browser and don't know what to look for the script won't compile correctly. I cut the script from my second post and got it to compile—so the post is OK. Here's the script again with the inch setting—if you still have trouble I can e-mail you a compiled script:

tell application "InDesign 2.0.2"
set myDoc to active document
tell myDoc
tell view preferences
set myOrigHorMeasurementUnits to get horizontal measurement units
set myOrigVerMeasurementUnits to get vertical measurement units
set horizontal measurement units to inches
set vertical measurement units to inches
end tell
end tell
try
set mySelection to item 1 of selection
set myClass to class of mySelection
if myClass is image then
set myLink to item link of mySelection
else
set myLink to item link of image 1 of mySelection
end if
on error
display dialog "Please select a picture before running this script."
return
end try
set myFileName to file path of myLink

set myFrame to parent of parent of myLink

set myPic to parent of myLink

set myVScale to absolute vertical scale of myPic

set myHScale to absolute horizontal scale of myPic

set myRotation to absolute rotation angle of myPic

set boxBounds to geometric bounds of myFrame
set picBounds to geometric bounds of myPic

set boxRight to item 4 of boxBounds

set boxleft to item 2 of boxBounds
set boxTop to item 1 of boxBounds
set boxBottom to item 3 of boxBounds
set boxHeight to boxBottom - boxTop
set boxWidth to boxRight - boxleft

set picX1 to item 2 of picBounds

set picY1 to item 1 of picBounds
set picX2 to item 4 of picBounds
set picY2 to item 3 of picBounds
set picXCenter to picX1 + ((picX2 - picX1) / 2)
set picYCenter to picY1 + ((picY2 - picY1) / 2)

set boxX1 to item 2 of boxBounds

set boxY1 to item 1 of boxBounds
set boxX2 to item 4 of boxBounds
set boxY2 to item 3 of boxBounds
set boxXCenter to boxX1 + ((boxX2 - boxX1) / 2)
set boxYCenter to boxY1 + ((boxY2 - boxY1) / 2)

set hOff to picXCenter - boxXCenter

set vOff to picYCenter - boxYCenter

tell application "Adobe Photoshop 7.0"
activate
set ruler units of settings to inch units

try
open myFileName
on error
display dialog " Update Indesign Links"
return
end try

tell current document

[rob day]

It occurred to me—do you have the Photoshop Scripting Plugin installed?

<http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=39&platform=Macintosh>

Photoshop is not scriptable without it. If I pull the plugin the script fails on the first Photoshop command.

Also, I'm running OSX10.2.6

[Marilyn Langfeld]

Hi Rob,

Still no luck. You were right, I didn't have the Photoshop Scripting Plugin installed. I installed it, restarted Photoshop, but the script now tells me that an identifier can't go after this identifier ('ruler units' highlighted). I don't think the problem is line breaks, but I'm no scripting expert, like you. I'd love a to try a compiled copy if you don't mind sending me one. I activated my email listing in forum preferences.

[Marilyn Langfeld]

Oh, yes, I'm also running OSX 10.26.

[rob day]

Marilyn,
I emailed a compiled version. If it doesn't work I'm not sure what's up. Make sure you have the most recent version of the plugin 1.0.2a--the script broke on one of my machines which wasn't up-to-date. What happens if you try to compile just the preference line?:

tell application "Adobe Photoshop 7.0"
activate
set ruler units of settings to inch units

end tell

When you paste text try clicking the Check Syntax button to compile before you click Run.

Also it probably will not work if the placed file is a layered PS file. I haven't made any attempt to debug this...