Adding duotone images to flyers or report covers in Indesign is an easy process and adds a touch of class to a simply design. We show you how in our Adobe Indesign courses.
To create the yellow and orange duotone image for a flyer like this first go into Photoshop and File > Open > and navigate to your image – in this case it’s a vineyard.
Go to Image > Image Size to check that the size is appropriate for your flyer. Then choose Image > Mode > Grayscale > and Discard the colour information. To give a greater tonal range to the image go to: Image > Adjustments > Levels, and pull the black and white end stops in a few millimeters; then adjust the midtone gray stop. Then File > Save As: vineyard grayscale.jpg, for example.
Now return to Indesign and create a new document – this can either be for print or web, depending on the purpose of the file. Then go to File > Place and place the grayscale image. Scale upwards if necessary using Edit > Free Transform.
To create the duotone effect select the image with the Selection tool (black arrow) and click on a yellow swatch, for example. This changes the lights in the image to a colour. Then deselect the image. Return to the Swatches and create a new colour swatch using the values of 240,180,90 for a pale orange. Next select the image again with the Direct Selection tool (white arrow). Then click on the new swatch – this changes the darks to a colour. If the orange is too light, double-click on the swatch label and change the values to 240,140,90 > tick Preview to view it.
More tips and techniques can be found at Adobe user groups which meet regularly in most capital cities, and are free forums for designers to discuss topics and the latest Indesign features. See also many examples of our own clients’ work on our Facebook page.
Other related Indesign Blog Posts:

• Indesign images and text
  
• Indesign workflow
• Indesign templates
• Indesign page numbers
• Indesign add hyperlink