Within InDesign you can select a placed image and look at the Info Panel to see the effective PPI of the image.

When you enlarge a raster image within Indesign you decrease the pixel density and stretch the same number of pixels to cover a larger area. When you reduce a raster image within InDesign you are 'squishing' pixels together increasing the effective PPI of the image. When you resize raster content in Indesign you are altering the image pixel density - stretching and compressing existing pixels. And if you take raster images from Photoshop, place in Illustrator, then place the AI file into InDesign you could have several steps of raster image changes to effective PPI. Note Illustrator handles placed raster images the same way InDesign does - so all this related to Illustrator as well. InDesign only uses the pixels already present in the image. Unlike Photoshop, InDesign does not interpolate raster content - that is to say it doesn't remove or add any pixels to raster images. InDesign is not a raster image processor. There's nothing you need do for placed vector content other than to not rasterize it. If the content is vector it will output as the highest possible resolution for the output device. A benefit to vector content is you don't need to worry about this sort of thing.

This is true for just about any app which handles vector content. Size/resolution is calculated upon output and the vector content is rasterized according to settings and output device capabilities. When you switch back to InDesign, you will see the changes just as you’ve intended.In general, vector content is vector content. Simply, open the file, save the changes and close it. Therefore, the Edit original does not always open the right program, which is why we have Edit with.Įdit with enables you to select the editing program of your choice. It merely relies on the file associations defined in your OS. Now, InDesign does not know that you have an editor such as Photoshop or Illustrator installed.

Just make the required changes, save and close the image editor and the changes will instantly reflect in your document because it is linked. When you choose Edit original, InDesign opens the image in an image editor. This enables a lot of flexibility when it comes to editing images. We’ve seen earlier that InDesign does not directly import images but only places the links in that document. InDesign gives you two options to edit your images – Edit original and Edit with, both available in the Edit menu. InDesign is not an image editor per se but that should not stop you from making changes to your images.

Photoshop in indesign