How to Fade the Edge of an Image in QuarkXPress
Did you know you don’t need Photoshop to create a faded edge on a photo in QuarkXPress? All you need is to fill a box with a linear gradient from “None” to “Paper“. Just follow these steps (click any image for a larger view):
Above is the original photo. We want to fade its right side, to accommodate a headline. To do that, I created a second box that is filled with a linear blend and placed it on a layer above the photo:
Note in the Colors palette that the “#2” color for the blend is “Paper” — a color I created to match the color of the background (in this case, white). The color assigned to “#1” is “None“.
You can control how the photo fades out — quickly or slowly and over how much of the photo — by simply changing the width of this box. The result looks like this:
Add some text, reduce its opacity to 70%, apply a drop shadow, and the result is puffy-looking text with the flowers slightly showing through:
Below are the settings I used for the drop shadow (click to enlarge):
This solution is another example of how Quark gives you tools inside QuarkXPress that make you more efficient and streamlines creativity. In this case, it eliminates the need to open the image in Photoshop (and have to save yet another copy of it!). It also lets you make your creative image adjustments in the context of the page you’re working on — rather than in an isolated Photoshop window!
Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.
Good stuff. Thank you. What is the difference between ‘Paper’ & ‘White’ (Q7.5 – no ‘Paper’)?
FlyingScud: as long as you’re printing on white paper (or the background of your digital document is white), there should be no difference. I just created a new color in the Colors palette and named it “Paper”. That way, if the color of my paper changes, I can just change the definition of the color “Paper” and all “Paper” colored items will change at the same time.
I truly wish there were a “Paper” color in QuarkXPress… are you listening, Quark folks?
yeah but how do you have an photo fade into another photo…like feathered edges in PSD?
Michelle: you’re going to want to do that in Photoshop. Quark isn’t really a photo-compositing application…