Why doesn't InDesign have a gaussian blur filter?

[Andy Massari]

It seems most adobe programs have it, why doesn't ID have a blur filter? It has all other filters necessary to create a nice layout without having to change an image in it's original source, but blurring is not there. Would be very useful for it to have it.  If crappy Microsoft Powerpoint and Word have a blur filter, it seems ridiculous that Adobe ID doesn't.

[Derek Cross]

You can "round-trip" between InDesign and Photoshop to apply any effects you may want. Horses for courses.

[Andy Massari]

Thanks Derek - I think I replied to this under Bob Levine's answer...

[BobLevine]

First Word and Powerpoint are not crappy. They are tools for a very specific purpose.

So is InDesign and so is Photoshop. Would you hire a carpenter that showed up with only a hammer?

[Andy Massari]

Bob, but I don't know what that has to do with the price of rice in China. I apologize if my question sounds a bit rude, but it's a legitimate question regarding the effects palette that has everything but blur. ID even has bevel and emboss which I've never used in ID as an experienced designer. And I use Powerpoint for presentations often and I'm always amazed on how many effects they have put into it, knowing that 80% of the app users are noncreative executives. Of course I can go into PSD and blur the image and save it as a different name and re-import it into ID and place again etc.. I do that all the time. I'm asking, if ID is capable of having that option, why doesn't it. Maybe a developer can answer that question, but thank you for trying.

[rob day]

I'm asking, if ID is capable of having that option, why doesn't it. Maybe a developer can answer that question, but thank you for trying.

InDesign doesn’t have any image editing features that alters and saves the linked image’s pixels. It would be a slippery slope—why no lens blur, unsharp mask, sharpen edges, color correction tools, layer effects, etc? And the image would have to be embedded, or the disk version would have to be resaved (to what format?), both options would create problems. Applying a gaussian blur to an embedded 2MB might not present a problem, but what if the file is 2GB?

[Andy Massari]

Rob, I agree, Adobe Illustrator has that issue. Depending on the size of the image, it may slow down the program and lag depending on your RAM and processor, but AI is vector based and it HAS a blur option. That's my point. ID is also vector but they don't have the blur filter as an option. It has a feather radius option, why can they make it a full feather to the whole image? If you don't use large images, it should be fine. I work on 300 dpi files, and the average size of an image within the file is 1-3 megs, for a large image.

[rob day]

If you don't use large images, it should be fine.

If you apply the Blur filter to a linked image in Illustrator, it looks to me like a bitmap version of the original image with the effect applied is embedded—if I open the linked original it is not changed. The way you use images might not be a problem, but an InDesign document could have 100s of pages with full bleed images, so I don’t think the engineers could depend on all users limiting the number or size of filtered images. There are lots of reports of large embedded images corrupting ID documents, but it would be worth filing a feature request.

[JonathanArias · Accepted solution]

sounds like you have a feature request, here you go:

https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

please add your requests and if there is enough demand for that feature, you may see it in the future.

[Andy Massari]

Thank you Jonathan.

[Laubender]

Hi JCIAndyM,

you could have both, a layer with the original pixels and a duplicate on top of it with a Gaussian Blur applied.

Both layers within one Photoshop file. After placing the psd file you could turn on or off the layer with the blur.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )