How to extract photos from Pages documents.

A few years ago (in fact, ten! years ago)  I wrote here a about a simple trick that allows you to get a photo out of a Pages document. It's not obvious but quite easy once you know it; and useful because you are probably more likely to remember a Pages document where you used a photo rather than where and under what name the photo is filed and stored.

Once again, in the current version of Pages:

— click on the photo to select it in a Pages document;
— in the Inspector panel click on 'Image';
— click and hold on the photo file icon and drag it to Desktop;
— now you can put it into Photos, send as an attachment, change the file name or use for whatever purposes you'd been looking for it.

There you are, you got back the original photo file in all it's beauty.

Pagès on the march.

More Pages in more unexpected places. This time - on a tea label. 

I was in Rennes the other day and ordered tea in the local cafe. The French tea makers, who own the Pagès label, have been in existence since mid-19th century. Their website is here. 

The tea was nice though pricey and their shade of blue is also attractive. I’ve copied the blue, similar to St Patrick blue, in my color palette. 

If you want to recreate the colour, here’s it’s CMYK reading:

In an open Colors Inspector (viewer), click in the color tab (well) and drag the color to the palette grid at the bottom of the viewer. Use this technique to store colours that you copy of photographs and pictures for future re-use.

Wikipedia has an article on the blue colour, its history and symbolism, including RGB, CMYK and other readings for blue.

How to add a picture frame and a copyright signature.

To add a picture frame with curved edges, that looks like an old fashioned photo print, and then add your signature with the copyright sign, you can do this:

1. Import your photo into an iWork document (drag and drop)

2. In Graphic Inspector, click on the drop-down menu under Stroke and choose Picture Frame.

3. Click on the picture frame styles menu and choose the one which gives a ‘curved edges’ effect. Adjust the shadow with the slider there. 

4. To add your copyright signature to the picture, click on Text Box icon in the Toolbar and type in your name. To add the copyright sign (©), press the Option key (alt) and type G.

5. Change the colour of the text to white to place on darker parts of the picture. Select text and click on the colour well in the Text inspector. Choose colour in the Colors Inspector.

6. Move the text box to a corner of the picture, rotate vertically if you want to. To rotate, press the Command key and drag one of the handles of the Text Box.

Export your iWork document to PDF or other graphic format. 

Put Remembrance Poppy on Your Photo

Finished photo with a Poppy

Here is a simple how-to:

- Drop a photo of yourself into a Pages document;

- Next, insert a photo of red poppies or a snapshot of the British Legion Poppy Appeal lapel poppy;

- If there are many poppies in the photo put a mask on it to leave just one;

- Remove background with Instant Alpha tool, so that only the red poppy is left;

- Resize and position the Poppy over the photo the way you like it to look;

- Take a screenshot, print to PDF or Jpeg - and use as avatar, favecom, profile picture, etc.

Click on Remembrance Poppies label (here, or below this post) to read other posts about Remembrance Day theme and making your own clipart with poppies.

Add photo of poppies

Remove background with Alpha

Mask to leave one poppy

Resize and reposition.

 Photos: ©A.Anichkin

Drag and Drop Images Straight from the Browser

Don’t overload your computer – drag and drop images straight into your Pages document without first downloading them to your hard disc. The image will be stored with the Pages document and could always be easily extracted when needed as a separate file.

When you find an image you want on the internet click on it and hold, then drag it from an open browser window to an open Pages document. When Pages are ready to receive the image a blue outline will appear in the document. The blue contour shows where the images will sit: just on the page or inside a shape that you have already created in the Pages document.

Now, to get the image back from Pages open Inspector>Metrics and click on the little icon that shows in the Metrics file window. Hold and drag it to the Desktop or wherever you want it to sit.

That's it, easy-peasy!

This trick may be especially useful for Windows switchers. Macusers know that a lot of work is done by dragging and dropping.

Remember about copyright: look for free domain images on wikipedia or some such, or ask for permission to use an image.

Read this earlier article: Extracting Photos Back from Pages.

Background Photos: Everywhere

Rather than looking for background photos on the internet, it's better to build your own library of backgrounds. At least you know what you normally want, so can choose and collect pictures as you go.

Go where? Everywhere! If you don't have a digital camera, use the one on your mobile, these days most have one. I sometimes stop in the middle of a town market to take a few snaps of the pavement, or go up to a building and do a macro close-up of a stone wall. Meadows, fields, sky, beach – backgrounds are everywhere. People sometimes stare, but who cares.

Here is a lichen-covered wall of the 11th Century Bayeux cathedral in France. I was in town having lunch with friends and thought that it would make a good background. So here you are, the wall:

And here it is in the background. To make text stand out better I put it in a Text Box with colour-fill and reduced opacity to 50 percent.

How to make coloured text stand out on the same colour background.

We can’t write white on white or black on black, can we?

Here is the trick I’ve used to make text stand out even when it has the same colour as the dominating colour of the background. The text needs to be put inside a box with a semiopaque colour fill. Above is the card I designed for a relative’s jubilee. Cherries in the background have the same colour theme as the message inside the box. This technique is also useful for magazine design.

This is how it works:

– open a blank document, choose landscape (horizontal) layout if it is going to be a card, vertical if you are making a poster of a flyer;

– drag and drop the photo into the Pages document from iPhoto or Desktop, resize and position as needed;

– next insert a Text Box (or a rectangle, it doesn’t matter). Text Box by default doesn’t have a colour fill, go to Graphic Inspector and add Colour fill to the Text Box. Here I chose a custom grey colour (CMYK: 14, 10, 8, 0), but Silver from the Crayon Box in the Colour Viewer would work as well. Text box sits ‘on top’ of the background photo, resize the box so that the photo can be seen in wide margins all around the box;

– next type your text in the box as you would in a word processing document;

Click on colour well

– formatt the text in Text Inspector: here I centred the text, then aligned it to the centre of the box. Then highlight all text (Command+A), make it bigger and change colour to one that is similar to the main colour theme of the background photo. Here a preset colour from the Crayon Box – Cayenne – works well (CMYK: 11, 85, 96, 33);

Drag slider to reduce opacity

– next, click away, somewhere in the document, and then click again on the Text Box to select it as an object. Go to Graphic Inspector and click on the colour chooser (well) under the drop–down menu bar. Then in Colour Well reduce opacity to around 75 percent. Now you see that the background photo is just visible through the coloured Text Box and the text, which has the same main colour as the background, stands out and is clear and readable.

It’s a simple trick that adds striking effect to your designs. If you design a cover for a magazine or a brochure with a large photo that covers all space and goes over the edges(bleeds), this is one good way to make straplines (text) on the cover clear and visible. For print publications, including posters and cards, it is very important – passersby or people browsing in a news agent need to see instantly what’s in the magazine, or what the card is about.

Please read about 'Cover Design Tricks: Making Text Stand Out'. Note the semiopaque box in the bottom left corner of the cover. And also 'How to Outline Text in Pages' and 'Fading Out Background Image'.

Pages Bookshop in Normandy

Another proof of the triumphant march of Pages: the English bookshop in the village of Passais-la-Conception, (the Orne, Normandy, France):

If Master Object Options Are Greyed Out

A reader writes: 


I'm creating a brochure template in Pages and trying to 'place a master object', but the object placement in Format/Advanced is set to 'make master objects selectable' and this along with 'move object to section master' are both greyed out. I also tried 'Inspector - Wrap' all items here are greyed out also. I cant change these settings. I've tried various things but nothing is allowing me to change these options. Please help.

Don't panic: it looks like you are in 'Page Layout' mode. 

Open any document in 'Word Processing' mode and you will see that the options you want are all available. 

If you are creating a new brochure from scratch, open a new document in Word Processing mode and copy/paste what you've already done into the new one. If you are modifying an existing template, copy/paste the elements you want into the document created in Word Processing mode.

I know it sounds silly, but it works.

Use Preview to Update Repeated Formats

Everybody who works on a periodic publication - weekly newsletter, monthly magazine etc, comes against this task: there is an ad or a column with set format. For each new issue you only need to change photos and a few bits of text.

I found that using Preview for updating existing formats is quicker and easier than via Media Browser.

Here I have an estate agent advertising with us. Each month we put in a new selection of properties for sale.

First, in the ad which is a Pages document, define photos already in place as image placeholders. Click to select and then: Format>Advanced>Define as Media placeholder (kb shortcut: control+option+command+I)

So, when new photos come I put them in a specially created, 'ad hoc' folder.
Then I select all photos in the folder (Command+A) and open them all in one Preview window - Command+O. Or simply place them close to one another on the Desktop and drag cursor over them to select.

Preview opens all photos at once with a 'drawer' on the side of the window with thumbnails of pictures.


Click on the thumbnails one by one and drag to the Pages document to be updated. As you drag the photo over the allocated placeholder slot it is highlighted with a blue frame. Let go - and the old photo is replaced with the new one.

You may find this method quicker and more efficient than going through the Media Browser because working through Media requires additional step - arranging pictures in iPhoto BEFORE using them in your Pages project. But your iPhoto may already be cluttered with numerous images, albums and folders.

Of course, if for some reason you find it more reassuring to use the Media Browser, you can import your 'ad hoc' folder into the Media - just drag and drop it onto the open MB window.

Please also check this more recent article:
Preview Drawer trick: a quick way of selecting and importing photos into Pages

Please read an older article:
Designing ads in Pages: the Golden Apple

Simple tricks with photos: linked contents

Here is a list of links to articles about working with photos in Pages. All the tricks are easy to master with just the basic knowledge of how Pages work. The rest, as Albert Einstein said, is imagination.

Drag and Drop Direct from Mail
Preview Drawer trick: a quick way to select and import photos into Pages
Picasso's room: Simple drawings with photos, edited shapes and curved lines
Use Preview to update repeated formats

The Hughes Family templates: how to make collages and mosaics with photos
Happy New Year 2009! Drawing letters and images in Pages
Christmas graphics and clipart: a few easy tricks
How to change background in a photo
Remembrance theme: using background images
Obama, Blues Brothers and Picasso - yes, we can
How to separate people in the photo from the background
Remembrance poppies: make your own clipart
When picture wrapping pushes caption out of the text box
How to download photos
Blue conversions: a solution
Rose Cover: simple tricks with photos
Simple tricks with photos: fading from side to side
Fading out background image
Extracting photos back from Pages documents
No fuss with resizing pictures: use image fill

The list is updated as new posts are published.
Please come back to check out new tips and tricks.

How to change background in a photo

It's a popular graphic design trick. You take a picture of a person, remove background and put the person in front, for example, of a famous landmark.

While Pages is not a specialised graphic design programme, a few simple tricks can help you achieve striking graphic effects.

Here is a photo of the new American monument in Normandy, recently unveiled at Utah Beach. The US Naval Order raised thousands of dollars to create this moving memorial to the sailors who fought to liberate Europe from nazis and the French provided the land. Surprisingly, while there are dozens of memorials to American soldiers in Normandy, the Navy had none. Photo of the unveiling ceremony below left.

I used Instant Alpha to remove the sky and put in a real documentary photo of American forces landing at Utah Beach on D-Day in 1944. The black and white photo is masked and the mask is set to have the same width as the main photo.

Please read these previous articles about some other simple tricks with photos:
How to separate people in photo from background
Remembrance theme: using background images

To see the original photo please click here

Remembrance theme: using background images

The photo of red poppies lining a Normandy field is used here to create a graphic margin for the Remembrance page in our magazine. The image is one of a series of photos I took this Summer.












Here is how it works:

- Import original photo with poppies (top right image).
- Under Arrange menu - Send to Back.

Now the photo is behind all other elements of the page.

- In Metrics Inspector click on rotation wheel or on degrees arrows to rotate the photo so that the line of red poppies is vertical.

You can also rotate the photo by pressing Command and dragging the photo's handles (little squares in the corners).

- Resize and move the photo so that the vertical line of poppies is on the margin of the page.
- Mask and edit mask so that the right side of the image slighlty, only just, overlaps the text. (top left image)
- In Object Inspector (update: Graphics Inspector in current version of Pages) add picture frame with blurred edges.

In my version of Pages it is the bottom left option. Blurred edges create romantic, moving feeling about the whole graphic composition.

- Reduce opacity of the image (also in Object Inspector).

Fading out the background image by reducing its opacity is needed to avoid a large graphic element dominating the page and also, because it overlaps the text in the first column, to make the text visible.

The whole process may sound complicated, but in fact it is rather easy to do - and very enjoyable. The things you do for England!

I was slightly concerned about the slanted line of horizon visible at the top, but then realized that, serendipitously, I gave the photo a 'fallen soldier' effect - you fall down and the earth and the sky look tilted in your eyes.

Whenever you use a photo as the background image always consider reducing opacity. I think it is the best way to achieve better visibility for text and other graphic elements 'in front'. Of course, light, consistently coloured images may not need this. Like the 'old parchment' image behind the main article on this page. The image itself is from the Musical Concert Poster template which comes with your copy of Pages.

Note: Click on pictures to see small details

Please also read these related articles on I Work in Pages:

Remembrance poppies: make your own clipart in Pages
Simple tricks with photos: fading photos from side to side
Fading out background image

and see other photos of red poppies in Normandy on our Readers' Photos blog here and here
If you use the photos please credit them to the Rendezvous Media.

How to Download Photos: Just Drag and Drop

I am sure most Mac users already know this trick, but if you are just starting to build your stock you may find this tip useful. To download a photo from the internet to your computer

Click on the image, hold and drag to your Desktop.

It's dead easy, so easy that I always giggle to myself when I come across complicated multistep advice on downloading photos from the internet, sometimes even software for sale to do this.

When you've dragged a picture to your Desktop, you get a file, in most cases in .jpg format. They come in various sizes and resolutions. Many internet images have a 72 DPI count, quite low, to allow fast loading of internet pages.

For good quality print projects these can only be used in very small sizes. If you need a good quality picture which you plan to use in a large size you should have at least 300 DPI count in real size. Many web-sites, including wikipedia/wikimedia have clickable pictures which open up in higher resolution, good for quality printing.

Remember to check copyright status of images and crediting requirements. Wikipedia and many public/government web-sites have current affairs photos free for use (in public domain.) There is a number of web-sites, including bigfoto.com, offering amateur photos for free downloads and use. However, while digital photography made taking snaps very easy, a good picture requires a lot of creative work, planning, thinking, preparation, luck - and talent. A good photographer always puts part of their soul into the picture.

If a photo has a name to it, I make it a rule to mention it in photo credits.

Oh, and apple photos on this blog are all mine, clickable and free to reuse. Please credit to Alexander Anichkin (Александр Аничкин) and link to this blog.

Blue conversions: a solution

Here is a recent example of a "blue conversion":
Top right picture shows a restaurant courtyard. The photo in jpg format is dropped into the magazine page and looks ok. But after conversion to press-quality PDF it appears as a solid blue rectangle. (picture below left)








To make the photo convertible:

- Open it in Safari or Preview and 'Print' to iPhoto (Save PDF to iPhoto option in the Print Dialogue window)
- check the image in iPhoto and import it into your Pages document.

If the image is fine in iPhoto it will convert properly in Pages-PostScript-PDF process. (picture on the right)

Once again I must say that I don't know why blue conversions happen, nor can I explain why 'printing' them to iPhoto resolves the problem. It simply works and as with most other tips on this blog it's all that matters.

I have tested this process several times with several different photos and have successfully used it in the magazine.


Please see a description of the blue conversion problem here and the Pages-PS-PDF process here.

Rose cover: simple tricks with photos

I had a beautiful close-up photo of a frosted rose which I decided to put on the cover of a February issue with the Valentine's theme.

There was a problem with the photo - it had squared proportions. So, when I fitted it into the A4 page format the top of the page stayed empty. I couldn't increase the dimensions, because the sides of the rose would be cut, couldn't drag to the top, because the bottom of the cover would have been empty.

So here is a way to make the cover with a photo that doesn't fit.

- import the same picture onto the cover again,
- send the second photo to back (Arrange menu),
- slightly increase the dimensions to align the white, slightly blurred, contours of frosted leaves in the photo at the back with the white frosted lines in the main photo. The seam between the two photos is just below the magazine strapline which makes it almost invisible, unless you look specially.

The job would have been done by this stage, but a small bit of the red rose petal slipped inside the top of the page.

- cover unwanted bits of the photo with patches, here it was a triangular object. Send backward (under arrange menu, or shortcut: Option+Command+Shift and hit B continuosly until the patch is between the main photo and the photo at the back.) Fill object with gradient colour (Object Inspector) and match the gradient colours with the colours in the photo (use magnifying glass in the Colour well). That makes the patch practically invisible.

This trick is simple to master and gives good design results with just the tools available in iWork/Pages.

See also this earlier article:
Last minute corrections - use patchwork

Original rose photo: Richard Allen

Simple Tricks with Photos: Fading Out Photos from Side to Side

I have been searching for some help in Pages for photo editing. Wondering if you could help me. I am wanting to fade a photo from opaque on the left through to transparency on the right. Do you know how to do this?
Andrea Stevens

My first reaction to this problem was no, it's not possible in Pages.

However, having thought about it for a few days, I think I found an easy solution with just the tools available in Pages:

1. Original photo:

Photo by Shu Milne

2. Fade with white object and black shadow:

3. Fade with black object and black shadow:


4. Beige fade with beige object and beige shadow:


Of course, it's not exactly what Andrea had in mind, but perhaps it may do while you are getting round to have it done in a graphic programme.

Here is how to:

- import photo into Pages,
- create an Object with colour fill of your choice,
- give it a Picture frame with blurred edges (lower row, left),
- set Scale to 50 percent,
- check Shadow and pick the colour of the shadow from the original photo,
- offset at 50, blur at 72, opacity of the shadow at 50 percent,
- position and resize the object to cover the photo so that it looks as though the photo itself is fading from right to left or left to right,
- make a cropped screenshot (as used here) or 'print' to PDF and crop to create the image you need for your project.

See fading in progress in picture on the left and settings used in the Graphic Inspector on the right.













Hope this helps and I welcome all comments, questions and suggestions.

Also read this previous article:
Fading out background image

Addendum (December 2014): 
This post shows menus (Graphic Inspector) from an older version of Pages. If you are using the current version, end of 2014, the menus will look different. Screenshots below show where to find frame (line, picture) styles.
- First select the image (photo or graphics), Then click on Format at the top right of the document and then click on the small triangle next to Border.
- Note that frame thickness and colour can be changed. Click in the colour well to open the colour viewer to choose colour. Click on up/down arrows to change the thickness of the frame.

Last minute corrections - use patchwork.

Last week the designer who works with me was travelling in Italy when the proof reader discovered a few typos in the page which was supplied to me as a PDF module originally created in Illustrator. (There are types of PDFs which Enfocus PitStop can't get into!) I couldn't get through to her and had to correct the typos by superimposing text boxes over the text, matching the colour, the font and filling the box with gradient colour fill to match the background (top image shows the word rendez-vous spelled the French way, correctly, image below shows the text box with corrected part of text ready to be moved into position).


The simple technique of using patches always helps when you need to make last minute minor corrections in photographs, graphic images and text. Here is how it works:

- create a Text Box (or Object), type in correct word or letter sequence, adjust font and point size to match the original, set Stroke (frame) to none (image at right);
- uncheck wrapping in the Wrap Inspector;
- under Arrange menu make sure your patch is at the front: slide down to 'Bring to front';
- resize the text box so that it doesn't clip adjacent letters or lines. If you find it difficult to resize the box by dragging box handles, try doing it through Metrics Inspector. It allows discreet millimetres - down to tenth of a millimetre;
- move the patch to cover the text which needs correcting to align with the rest of the text - with keyboard arrows first. Then, if the patch does not align exactly, use Metrics Inspector to adjust coordinates - x for horizontals and y for verticals. Keyboard arrows move objects by the typographical point, but in Metrics Inspector you can move objects by the tenth of a millimetre;
- go to Object inspector, choose colour fill or gradient fill. Using the magnifying glass (loupe) in the Crayons window of Colours Inspector match the object colour fill to the background colour. Hide layout and invisibles to check if your patch matches the background and covers the corrected text.

Patchwork technique is very flexible and could be used for improving minor problems with photos and other images. But I suggest treating this as a quick fix rather than as a standard solution.

However, looking back, I see that over the past two years I've used patching many times to enhance photos or adjust them to layout requirements. Here are two examples.

1. There was a crease in the Marmite&croissant studio photo for our launch issue cover (image on the right, before patching). I put two patches - gradient colour filled objects on both sides of the marmite jar. Matching colour fill of an object is done as follows.

- in Object Ispector choose Gradient fill;
- click on one of the colour bars and when the colour well opens (crayons) click on the magnifying glass above/left of the crayons box (keyboard shortcut to open the colour well any time: Command+Shift+C).
- The cursor turns into the magnifying glass, hover it over the colour you want to copy, as close to the patch as possible - and click.
- Gauge in which direction the colour changes and repeat the same procedure with the second colour bar.
- Rotate the gradient direction wheel in the Inspector to adjust the colour change flow (image below right shows patch in position, with rectangular patch slanted to avoid cutting into the side of the jar).

2. The February Rendezvous magazine cover photo shows a just married couple sitting on a WWII vintage Willys Jeep. White straplines went nicely over olive green jeep body, but the white army markings were a bit distracting. In between the straplines (in text boxes) and the photo I put a shape with rounded corners, filled it with olive green matching the body of the Jeep and set opacity to 75 percent. This dimmed the white of the markings and made the straplines stand out better. To align the patch with the rest of the Jeep I tilted the patch right-downwards through Metrics Inspector.















To view full images of the May 2008, February 2008 and June 2006 covers of the Rendezvous magazine go to the Rendezvous Editor's Blog here
For more ideas check these earlier articles:
Preview as a cropping device
Extracting portions of a Pages document for separate use
Sharing and teamwork in iWork/Pages

The Rendezvous magazine June 2006 and February 2008 photos are by Mike Forster, Images of Normandy

Quick JPEGs straight from Pages

1. In an open Pages document Print (Command+P)
2. In Print dialogue window click on PDF drop-down menu
3. Choose 'Save PDF to iPhoto'

I've been struggling for some time to produce JPEG images from Pages to send out to friends and clients. Now this simple method gives me a quick and easy way to send out Pages documents - cards, invites, flyers or proofs - all straight from iPhoto. If you have a blog or a web-site these JPEGs are ready for uploading.