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    Intermediate  
 
  QuarkXPress™ Technical Manual Project
Part 2A - Image Preparation

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The next step is to prepare the images. Adobe® Photoshop® was used for these examples.

postit.gif   Note: If you are planning to generate a PDF from QuarkXPress™ you should save images as EPS files in RGB color mode. The RGB color in GIF images will become pale or "washed out" because Quark™ uses the CMYK color space and will shift RGB colors in the process. Although QuarkXPress version 4.1 now supports printing using the RGB color space you should achieve the best results if you use RGB EPS images.

Photoshop version 4.x does not support background transparency in images using indexed color. GIF images use indexed color and the bulb image is a GIF file. The onscreen appearance of the image depends on whether you are using Photoshop version 4.x or 5.x. I have provided different screen shots for each version.

1. Launch Photoshop and click File > Open and select "bulb_small.gif". You will see the dark red background color if you are using Photoshop version 4.x. This color appears transparent in your browser because this color has been set as transparent. Your browser may support GIF image transparency but Quark doesn't so the image must be saved in EPS format with a clipping path. The image mode for the GIF format is "indexed color" because it supports a maximum of 256 colors. We want the EPS file to be an RGB image so the first thing to do is to change the color mode from indexed color to RGB.
Click Image > Mode > RGB Color, then File > Save As and choose the Photoshop (*.PSD; *.PDD) from the "Save As" pull down. Enter "bulb_small.psd" and click "Save".

Photoshop 4.x
imageprep01.gif
Photoshop 5.x
imageprep01a.gif

2. Click the magic wand tool. In the Options palette, click the "Magic Wand Options" tab. Enter zero in the "Tolerance" field and un-check the "Anti-aliased" box. Click anywhere in the background then click Select > Similar. Your image should look like one of the screen shots below with all the background pixels selected.

Photoshop 4.x:
imageprep02.gif
Photoshop 5.x:
imageprep02a.gif

3. Next click Select > Inverse (Ctrl-Shift "I" Windows® or Cmd-Shift "I" Mac®). This will reverse the selection so all the remaining pixels are enclosed by the selection marquee.

Photoshop 4.x:
imageprep07.gif
Photoshop 5.x:
imageprep07a.gif

4. In the Layers palette group, click the "Path" tab to bring up the Paths palette. Click the arrow on the right to bring up the Path Options Menu. Choose "Make Work Path".

imageprep08.gif

5. In the "Make Work Path" dialog, enter a tolerance of 0.5 pixels. Click "OK".

imageprep09.gif


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