Quark Beats InDesign, A Review of the New PSD Import Xtension

With the newly released PSD Import xtension, QuarkXPress 6.5 does far more with placed native Photoshop files than InDesign.

Last week Quark released the PSD Import xten­sion for QuarkXPress 6.5. Authored by A Lowly Apprentice, Inc. (ALAP), one of the most respect­ed and detailed devel­op­ers of Quark xten­sions and InDesign plug-ins, the PSD Import xten­sion brings into Quark not only native Photoshop PSD files, but also a near mir­ror image of Photoshop’s own Layers, Channels, and Paths palettes.

Every InDesign users knows InDesign has long been able to place and use native Photoshop PSD files, com­plete with trans­paren­cy and any trans­paren­cy and blend­ing effects set in Photoshop. But, when InDesign places PSDs, they come in flat­tened; InDesign can­not direct­ly access the lay­ers in the PSD.

Quark can.

The Good

PSD files now appear in Quark’s Get Picture dialog—complete with pre­view. Once placed, the new PSD Import palette grants access to the image’s lay­ers, paths, and channels.

Layers, as well as paths and chan­nels, may be turned on or off, all with­in Quark and all with­out affect­ing the orig­i­nal PSD file. By selec­tive­ly deac­ti­vat­ing the PSD file’s chan­nels, sep­a­ra­tion pre­views are sim­ple. When hard­copy sep­a­ra­tions are need­ed, the The PSD Import xten­sion allows print­ing of col­or sep­a­ra­tions regard­less of the placed PSD file’s col­or mode—RGB, CMYK, Indexed, or Multichannel

Just as with­in Photoshop, indi­vid­ual lay­er­s’ opac­i­ty can be adjust­ed, and any of 22 dif­fer­ent blend­ing modes applied.

Alpha and spot chan­nels in the PSD may be assigned to col­ors from Quark’s Colors palette, and even used to cre­ate var­nish, emboss, or oth­er spe­cial plates. Index col­ors may also be replaced with col­ors from Quark’s Colors palette.

Clipping paths can be select­ed from the PSD Import Paths palette, allow­ing dif­fer­ent areas of the image to be dis­played or hidden.

Of course, like any oth­er placed image, PSD files can be scaled, skewed, rotat­ed, and flipped.

The Bad

What the PSD Import xten­sion does not sup­port, depend­ing on the indi­vid­ual work­flow, could be triv­ial or show-stopping.

Layered PSDs con­tain­ing lay­er effects are not rec­og­nized by the new xten­sion, so the PSD is flat­tened and the abil­i­ty to work with the file’s con­stituent lay­ers is lost.

Type and vec­tor path lay­ers are sim­i­lar­ly unsup­port­ed, though Quark will ras­ter­ize those lay­ers with­out flat­ten­ing the entire image. Layer groups are also not supported.

Layers, paths, and chan­nels may be turned on or off, but they can­not be rearranged. Neither can they be delet­ed or dupli­cat­ed. Changes of that nature require a trip back to Photoshop.

The Ugly

While InDesign can­not manip­u­late the lay­ers of placed PSD files like Quark, InDesign still beats Quark on trans­paren­cy. The PSD Import xten­sion holds the trans­paren­cy of the file’s con­stituent lay­ers, but the xten­sion forces a white back­ground to appear beneath all lay­ers. The back­ground col­or is impos­si­ble to change, so when plac­ing images on non-white back­grounds the old standy-by clip­ping path is necesary.

The Final Score

Of great­est sig­nif­i­cance to Quark users is the time and stor­age space sav­ings to be gained in using the PSD Import xten­sion sim­ply for its abil­i­ty to import PSD files. Whether Quark can work with the lay­ers of the file or flat­tens it, gone is the need to save a flat­tened TIFF from the Photoshop work­ing PSD just for place­ment into Quark. This advan­tage trans­lates into saved time—perhaps hours worth over the course of work­ing with not-yet-finalized images and layouts—and the need for less stor­age space sim­ply to archive both the orig­i­nal PSD file and the flat­tened copies used in the Quark layout.

The PSD Import xten­sion is a major step for­ward for a Quark that intends to com­pete for its chal­lenged throne.

Quark now works with PSD files bet­ter than Adobe’s own InDesign. The gaunt­let has been thrown down. I can’t wait to see how Adobe picks it up.

The PSD Import xten­sion is avail­able for imme­di­ate down­load from Quark’s web­site, and is free to all reg­is­tered users of QuarkXPress 6.5 or Quark Passport 6.5 for Macintosh or Windows.

2 thoughts on “Quark Beats InDesign, A Review of the New PSD Import Xtension”

  1. Chris Gregory

    If “Quark beats InDesign” by bundling this xten­sion it’s at best a Pyrrhic vic­to­ry! I would humbly sug­gest that the major ben­e­fits of InDesign’s sup­port of the .PSD for­mat are direct­ly access­ing its trans­paren­cy and all but instant­ly access­ing the orig­i­nal lay­ered file. As the lay­ers are but a click between win­dows away, sure­ly bet­ter to have all the pow­er of Photoshop avail­able, rather than some pared-down Quark-specified alternative…?!

  2. Pariah S. Burke

    Thanks for the com­ment, Chris.

    If Quark’s PSD Import Xtension sup­port­ed trans­paren­cy, then this fea­ture alone would have tak­en a lot of wind from InDesign’s sails. For, while InDesign’s advan­tages over Quark are numer­ous, its sup­port of trans­paren­cy and native PSD files are the most obvi­ous. Still, the strate­gic licens­ing of ALAP’s xtension–and giv­ing it away for free–was a bril­liant move by Quark.

    As you point­ed out, the lay­ers options beats InDesign’s PSD place­ment fea­tures, but, looked at as a whole, the abil­i­ty to work with lay­ers is far less valu­able than car­ry­ing through Photoshop trans­paren­cy. In my opin­ion the real sig­nif­i­cance of this xten­sion was in the fact that Quark does soemthing InDesign doesn’t–with Adobe’s own tech­nol­o­gy. It was a chance to embar­rass Adobe just enough to give some atten­tion back to Quark.

    Most sig­nif­i­cant of all, it was the return fire that proved Quark was final­ly enter­ing the war it had been los­ing for two years.

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