Frosted Glass effect in InDesign

[AG_Bendac]

Hi InDesign Community. 

I am trying to achieve frosted glass effect which can be achieved in XD. Is there a workflow to achive this blurred object effect?

 

[Jens Trost · Accepted solution]

Hi @AG_Bendac,
the technique described in the video uses the Background Blur of Adobe XD – this effect is not available in InDesign.

You could either use
– Illustrator (Effect -> Blur filters) and place your .ai file inside ID,
– Photoshop (Filters -> Blur) and place .psd,
– export a PDF out of XD using this effect (I don't think you can place .xd files nativly in ID?), this technique has the disadvantage that you can't quickly edit the effect and resave, you always have to export a PDF.

[AG_Bendac]

Thank you for your workflow alternatives. I am going to put a feature request for blurring for InDesign. 

[Derek Cross]

Why for this particilar effect when you can "round trip" between InDesign and Photoshop and have access to scores of all kinds of effects – horses for courses.

[AG_Bendac · Accepted solution]

Anyone intrested, please upvote the blurring feature request here.

[Derek Cross]

The workflow is to use the correct tool for the job.

InDesign is used for assembling assets. So for creating effects to photographs you use Photoshop and then Place the PSD (in RGB color mode) in InDesign where you add text and possible other images (which may be created from other applications, such as Illustrator).
You will also need to consider the final output(s); is it for print or for digital and if so which format(s).

[Jourdan W]

I know this thread is long dead, but this would be a useful feature. It's definitely possible to do it in Photoshop, but it would be useful in Indesign for the same reason that it exists in XD. I frequently want to use a frosted glass effect behind text boxes in ID—it's frustrating and time consuming to set these up in Photoshop, especially when revisions to the copy mean it needs to be resized down the line. It takes a 30 second edit and turns it into 5 minutes.

[HARSHIKA_VERMA]

Hi there,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback/suggestions. We will ensure that will share your suggestion with the team. Meanwhile, would you mind upvoting the similar request idea raised on our InDesign UserVoice page if you haven't done so already? Please add your voice and upvote the request.

Thanks,

Harshika

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

This is about three minutes' very crude work, but what's wrong with this approach —

— just use a carefully-selected, probably PS-generated 'ground glass' image that can be easily sized, shaped, scaled and adjusted for opacity? it's likely to give a far wider range of effects and design options than any built in fog or blur feature.

(I tend to look for reasons not to clog up InDesign's already endless feature set with "yet one more" that can be accomplished many other ways... sorry.)