Place Photoshop images in other applications

Photoshop provides a number of features to help you use images in other applications. Because of the tight integration between Adobe products, many Adobe applications can directly import Photoshop (PSD) format files and use Photoshop features like layers, layer styles, masks, transparency, and effects.

How you prepare an image for a page-layout program depends upon the file formats the program recognizes:

• Adobe InDesign 2.0 and later can place Photoshop PSD files. You do not need to save or export your Photoshop image to a different file format. Transparent areas are displayed and printed as expected.

• Most other page-layout programs require you to save the image as a TIFF or EPS file. However, if the image contains fully transparent areas, you must first define those areas using a clipping path. Check the documentation for your page-layout program to determine the best format for importing Photoshop images.

If the page-layout program cannot place Photoshop PSD files, follow these steps:

Use Photoshop artwork in Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator can both open or place Photoshop files; you do not need to save or export your Photoshop image to a different file format. If you place an image into an open Illustrator file, you can incorporate the image as if it were any other element in the artwork, or you can maintain a link to the original file. Although you can’t edit a linked image within Illustrator, you can jump back to Photoshop, using the Edit Original command, to revise it. Once saved, any changes you make are reflected in the version in Illustrator.

Create transparency using image clipping paths

You can use image clipping paths to define transparent areas in images you place in page-layout applications. In addition, Mac OS users can embed Photoshop images in many word-processor files.

You may want to use only part of a Photoshop image when printing it or placing it in another application. For example, you may want to use a foreground object and exclude the background. An image clipping path lets you isolate the foreground object and make everything else transparent when the image is printed or placed in another application.

Print image clipping paths

Sometimes an imagesetter cannot interpret image clipping paths, or an image clipping path is too complex for a printer, resulting in a Limitcheck error or a general PostScript error. Sometimes you can print a complex path on a low-resolution printer without difficulty but run into problems when printing the same path on a high-resolution printer. This is because the lower-resolution printer simplifies the path, using fewer line segments to describe curves than the high-resolution printer does.

You can simplify an image clipping path in the following ways:

• Manually reduce the number of anchor points on the path.

• Increase the tolerance setting used to create the path. To do this, load the existing path as a selection, choose Make Work Path from the Paths panel menu, and increase the tolerance setting (4 to 6 pixels is a good starting value). Then re-create the image clipping path.

Export paths to Adobe Illustrator

The Paths To Illustrator command lets you export Photoshop paths as Adobe Illustrator files. Exporting paths in this way simplifies the task of combining Photoshop and Illustrator artwork or using Photoshop features with Illustrator artwork. For example, you may want to export a pen tool path and stroke it to use as a trap with a Photoshop clipping path you are printing in Illustrator. You can also use this feature to align Illustrator text or objects with Photoshop paths.

Link or embed an image using OLE (Windows only)

Photoshop is an OLE 2.0 server, which means it supports embedding or linking an image in an OLE container application (usually a word-processing or page-layout program). For example, you can insert Photoshop files and selections into other OLE applications, such as Adobe PageMaker, Adobe FrameMaker, and Microsoft Word, using copy and paste or other methods.

• Linking lets you place a link in the OLE container file that refers to the Photoshop file on the hard drive.

• Embedding lets you insert the Photoshop file into the OLE container file.

  After the image is in the container application, you can double-click it for editing in Photoshop. When you close the image in Photoshop, it is updated in the container application.

Link or embed a selection or image in an OLE application

Insert an unlinked screen-resolution bitmap into an OLE application

Modify and update a linked or embedded image in an OLE application