Images - how to download from design

[ali_4619]

Hi I uploaded a photo to my InDesign document and put a frame around it. Now I want to download that photo complete with frame. Is that possible? I have googled to try to find an answer incl Adobe info, looked in File/Export etc. The only option I can find is to download the whole document as jpg which I don't want to do. Another question - where are the photos and graphics you upload into a document stored in InDesign? I know where the Uploads folder is in Adobe Express but can't find in Indesign. Lastly, if I unlink an image from one document - does it unlink it from all other documents? I am doing tutorials including Adobe's.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

InDesign is not, generally speaking, an image editing or composition tool. You may simply want to do all of this in Photoshop, which is. InDesign basically works on the "page" level, so you export pages, with whatever content they hold.

But there are two approaches you could use. One is to export the page with your image and frame to a JPEG, then edit that image file to crop it to the outer edge of the frame (or something similar). The other would be to resize your InDesign document page to be exactly the size of your frame, so that the exported page would be, in a manner of speaking, pre-cropped to the finished size.

But image manipulation and composition is best done in Photoshop, with some more advanced options available in Illustrator. InDesign is not a good tool for this process.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ali_4619

You can export selected object. 

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Yeah, augh, forgot that the raster exports allow this. Would be the #1 solution here.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

There are scripting tricks to export only selected object to a PDF 😉 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ali_4619

What do you mean by "where are the photos and graphics you upload into a document stored in InDesign"? 

Have you placed them using Ctrl+D or copy&pasted?

[ali_4619]

Hi, thanks for your help. I place images using File/Place. What I mean is - is there a library or folder in InDesign where all your uploaded photos/graphics are stored for easy access? Please see screenshot attached of what I mean in Adobe Express. Also you say above that you can export selected object.  How do you do that?

[ali_4619]

Attachment here that I refer to above

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Linked items remain where they were linked from. InDesign does not move, collate or sort them, although you can "package" them for project archiving and transfer.

Loosely speaking, at the pro level you manage your own resources and don't depend on an app to "sweep up after you." 🙂 That is, put your images in resource locations BEFORE placing or linking them. Keeping projects and work organized is an essential practice. 

[ali_4619]

Great advice, thanks. To confirm I understand you correctly, it's not possible to create a library or folders in InDesign to organise your uploads, photos & graphics for easy access. You need to organise them yourself outside InDesign. Have you used Adobe Bridge? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ali_4619

You don't "upload" anything to InDesign's Document - you only link.

So, as @James Gifford—NitroPress explained - image you're linking to - remains at its location - you're only telling InDesign where it should look for this linked file when displaying it or exporting / printing.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@ali_4619

You can create a Library.

Or you can embed linked file - but you need to link it first. 

Or you can copy&paste. 

But what exactly are you trying to achieve?

What kind of a job you're working on? 

And overall - you should really take a few even basic courses how to use InDesign and how it works.