Create optimum page layouts for your documents using productive tools of Scribus.
To begin with, remember that there are two kinds of graphics you can add to your layout. You can have photos, generally taken from a digital camera, downloaded, or bought on some website. Photos will generally be stored in JPEG files, but you can also find PNG, TIFF, or many other file formats. The second kind of graphics is vector drawings such as logos and maps. They are computer-made drawings and are stored as EPS or SVG files. You will certainly need to work with both in most of your documents.
The previous image shows the comparison between a photo on the left-hand side, and the same photo traced in vectors on the right-hand side. In the middle, see how the details of the photo are made up of square pixels that are sometimes difficult to handle to get good printing results.
The first difference is that with photos, you will need to place them in a frame. There are some tips to automatically add the frame, but anyway, a frame will be needed. Vector drawings are imported as shapes and can be manipulated in Scribus like any other Scribus object.
The second difference is that when working with photos, you will have to import them within Scribus. The term "import" is precise here. Most text processors don't import but insert images. In the case of "insert", the images are definitely stored in your document. So you can send this document to anyone via e-mail or can store it on any external storage device without caring about whether these images will still be present later. Scribus does it differently: it adds to the frame a reference to the imported file's own storage position. Scribus will look for the file each time it needs it, and if the file is not where it should be, problems may arise. Basically, the steps you go through while performing a DTP import and while performing a text processor insert are the same, but the global workflows are different because the professional needs to which they refer to are different. All the communication software, layout programs, website building software, as well as video editing software perform the same steps. Once you're used to it, it's really handy: it results in lighter and more adaptable files.
However, while teaching Scribus, I have many times received mails from students who have trouble with the images in their documents, just because they didn't take enough care of this little difference. Remembering it will really help you to work peacefully.
DTP versus text processors again
Here we are talking about the default behavior of the software. As text processors can now work with frames, they often import the image as a link. Scribus itself should be able to embed pictures in its next release. Will the difference between these two pieces software one day disappear?
The next difference is about the color space of the pictures. Cameras use RAW or JPEG (which are RGB documents). Offset printers, which everyone usually refers to, are based on the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) model. Traditionally, most proprietary packages ask the users to convert RGB files into CMYK. With Scribus there is no need to do so. You can import your graphics as RGB and Scribus will export them all as desired at the end of the process (which most of the time is exporting to PDF). So, if you use GIMP, you shouldn't be embarrassed by its default lack of CMYK support.
CMYK in GIMP
If you really want to import CMYK photos into Scribus, you can use the GIMP Separate plugin to convert an RGB document to a CMYK. Batch converting can be easily done using the convert utility of ImageMagick. Consider using the new CMYKTool software too, which gives some nice color test tools and options, including ink coverage.
That said, we now have to see how it really works in Scribus.
To import photos, you simply have to:
This is the most common way to do it. On some systems, you can even drag the picture from your folder into the frame. The thing that you should never do is copy the photo (wherever it is) and paste it into your frame. When doing this, Scribus has no knowledge of the initial picture's storage location (because the copied image is placed in a special buffer shared among the applications), and that's what it needs.
There are other ways to import an image. You can use:
The DirectImageImport script is placed in the Script | Scribus Scripts menu. It will display a window waiting for you to specify which image to import. Once you validate, Scribus automatically creates the frame and places the image within. Some people find it useful because it seems that you can save one step this way. But, in fact, the frame size is a default based on the page width, so you will have to customize it. You might have to draw it directly with a good size and it should be as easy. But anyway, you'll choose the one you prefer. Always remember that each image needs a frame.
The image might be smaller or bigger than the frame. In the first case it won't fill it, and in the second case it will appear cropped. You can adapt the frame size as you want; the photo won't change at all. However, one thing you will certainly want to do is move the picture within the frame to select a better area. To do this, double-click on the frame to go into the Content Editing mode; you can now drag the picture inside to place it more precisely.
The contextual menu of the Image Frame will give you two menus that will help to make the size of the image the same as that of the frame:
In both cases, once applied, you can change the size of the frame as you need to and the photo will automatically be scaled to fit the frame size. Using such options is really interesting because it is fast and easy, but it is not without some risk.
When a frame shape is changed after the image is imported, the image itself doesn't change. For example, if you use any of the skew buttons in the Node window (Edit button of the Shape tab of PP) you'll see that the frame will be skewed but not the picture itself. Image changes have to be made in an image manipulation program.
Once your photos have been imported and they fit perfectly in your page content, you may wish to stop for a day or show this to some other people. It's always a good idea to make your decisions later, as you'll see more weaknesses a few days later.
It is generally at this point that problems appear. If you send your Scribus .sla document for proofreading, the photos won't be displayed on the proofreader's screen as they are not embedded into the file.
The same issue arises if you decide to move or rename some folders or photos on your own computer. Since Scribus just saves the location of your files and loads them when necessary, it won't be able to find them anymore.
In this case, don't worry at all. Nothing is lost; it is just that Scribus has no idea of what you have done to your file—you will just need to tell it. At this point, you have two possibilities:
When relinking, you can link to another image if you wish; these images just need to have the same name to make Scribus guess it's the good one. So it will be very important that you give unique names to your photos. You can define some naming rules, or keep the camera automatic numbering.
If you need to send your document to someone, you can either send a PDF that can't be modified, just annotated, or the whole Scribus document along with the photos. The best thing for this is not to compress the photo folder. It won't make the link into Scribus for they are absolute and the folder path name will differ on your reader's computer. They would need to relink every picture and that might take long for some documents. The best technique is to use the built-in File } Collect for Output window. It will ask you to create a new directory in which all the files needed for that document will be copied with relative paths, so that it will work everywhere. Compress this folder and send it.
As an example, let's create a postcard. It's an easy document that won't need many features and, therefore, we can concentrate on our image issues. We'll go through the dos and don'ts to let you experiment with the problems that you might have with a bad workflow.
(Move the mouse over the image to enlarge.)
After having created our page, we placed our photos inside the frames. By renaming the folder we broke the link between Scribus and the image files. The Manage Images window lets us see what happened. The full paths to the pictures are displayed here. In our example, all the pictures are in the same folder, but you could have imported pictures from several directories. In this case, only those being included in the renamed folder would have disappeared from the Scribus frames.
By clicking on Search, we told Scribus what happened to those pictures and that those pictures still exist but somewhere else. Notice that if you deleted the photos they will be lost forever. The best advice would be to keep a copy of everything: the original as well as the modified photos. Notice that if your images are stored on an external device, it should be plugged and mounted.
In fact, renaming the folder is not the only reason why an image might disappear. It happens when:
Giving the documents and the pictures to someone else by an e-mail or an USB-key will certainly be similar to the second case. In the first three cases, using the Manage Images window will help you find the images (it's better to know where they are). In the last two cases, you should be ready to look for new pictures and import them into the frames.