Inverting colours of a logo

[Frank.Saunders@adobeforums.com]

I have InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator & ImageReady. I have scanned a logo - a black oak leaf on a white background - but need to produce it as a white leaf on a green background, the green to merge with the green fill colour of the frame in which the logo will be placed.

Any advice on the steps I need to take and which software to use would be greatly appreciated - I am very green myself at using Adobe features, so simple advice for an Adobe simpleton would help!

Thanks
Frank

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

If you open the file in Photoshop and save a version as a B&W or a greyscale TIFF file, when placed into InDesign, the white will be treated as clear, allowing the green background color to show through; and the black logo can be clicked on with the white Direct Selection tool, and recolored to the paper white swatch, or any other color swatch, as well.

Mike Witherell in Washington DC

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

Add two adjustment layers: the first an "invert" and the second a gradient map from green to white. Move the bottom white colour stop to about mid position (on the gradient map).

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

Another way would be in PS to create two new layers, and fill each with the green colour of your logo. Dbl click the background to make it a freestanding layer and move one of the green layers above and one below the logo layer. Change the upper green layer's mode from "normal" to "hue". Change the logo's mode from "normal" to "difference" and then add an "invert" adjustment layer to the logo layer.

All this would be easier if you used a vector program to make your logo. There are other advantages as well to using something like Illustrator over PS for this kind of work.

[mikewitherell_at_jetsetcom_dot_net]

Philo,

Don't try to put that complicated PSD into InDesign. Chances are, it won't output. Better to take a simple recolor the tiff approach. The output is stable and predictable.

Mike Witherell in Washington DC

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

Mike: you must be skipping a few steps, as white does not render as transparent in ID. A greyscale tiff placed into ID will still be shades of grey as well as white. In the original tiff file, one can have an alpha channel defining transparency and then colour the grey/black areas in InDesign. Is that what you meant? (I still wouldn't do a logo in PS for InDesign, but would create it in IL, FH, or CD).

[Philo_Calhoun@adobeforums.com]

Mike: maybe this is an ID-CS versus ID2.02 issue. I've got both versions but tested on this computer running ID2.02. Bitmap but not greyscale images make white transparent when placed.

[Unregistered]

Open in Photoshop, Ctrl + I.
Job Done.