The Laughable News

Hi there and thanks for a great website and your resources. I’m over in the UK and want to publish a newsletter just like yours. I have purchased the software Photoshop and Indesign and oh boy what a learning curve it is trying to learn these programs however I am making progress. I have tons of questions I would like to ask you. But to start with the problem I seem to be having is that when I take an ad that I have created in Photoshop and I place it into Indesign the advert looks all pixelated and blurred instead of being clear and sharp like the text that I type directly into Indesign. Why is this and am I doing something wrong? I think you say to save the .psd file as a .tif so this is what I do. I create the .psd file with a resolution of 300 in greyscale, 8 bit, transparent background, colour profile is dot gain 20% and the pixel aspect ratio is square pixels. However when I place a .jpg of an ecover this is much more clear. I have attached a screen shot for you. Also would it be possible for you to do a short video tutorial on creating a basic advert in Photoshop to give me a basic overview of this task. Many thanks, John

Hey John,

Glad you like the site

The problem you're having is most likely just a Display issue - InDesign reduces the screen quality of images so as to not overwork your cpu. The files are just fine...and you'll see that if you export the file as a PDF. Everything will appear normal - text and images alike.

But, if you are like myself, you cannot stand looking at those grainy images. Here is the easy fix:

OPTION 1

• Choose the Selection Tool from the toolbox
• Left click the image to select it
• Right click to bring up a menu
• Choose Display Performance>High Quality Display

That should fix it up immediately. You can then do that for each image.

OPTION 2

• The other option is to do a blanket fix of all images within the Preference section of InDesign. Just navigate to that area and set High Quality as the default. All images will show as high quality after you re-open the file.

Tutorial: Yes, I would be happy to create a simple video tutorial. Anything specific you wanted to know?

Hi Ryan and thank you very much for responding to my query and thanks for the fix, that was the exact problem, what an idiot I feel. Thank you for offering to do a tutorial on creating an ad in photoshop. Could you recreate your ‘Rescue Towing’ ad in your sample ad section please? Could you include the settings for the document also? And can you tell me how you get bullets in photoshop? Thanks again for your kind help and for a great website and idea. Take care, John:)

Don't beat yourself up...it took me awhile to figure that one out as well - which included lots of hair pulling

Anyway, I've made the video. It comes in 3 parts to reduce the file size of each one. Normally I would upload it to YouTube and post it here...but, I'm having some issues with YouTube.

So, for now, I'll make it available on Screencast.com. Here are the links:

Part 1: www.screencast.com/t/qpbsX0vNWNu
Part 2: www.screencast.com/t/A2quUy0PZAY
Part 3: www.screencast.com/t/EjByI7oDa0

Hello Ryan and thanks a million for the videos, they're just great. You make it look so simple. For a novice I just struggle with these programs, they are so deep so I appreciate your help. All I could keep saying is 'so that's how you do it'. Thanks again and take care, John