Make Image Black & White in InDesign (Or Tint with a Color)

Learn how to color an image or make it Black & White in InDesign. Details below...
Patreon: / michaelbullo
A placed image within InDesign lives within a frame.
To select a frame, use the Selection Tool and click once on the image.
To select the image within a frame, use the Selection Tool and...
1. Double click on the image, or
2. Click on the donut looking icon (Content Grabber) at the centre of the frame.
With the image selected, click on Opacity within the Properties panel and change the Blending Mode to Luminosity.
With the frame selected, click on Fill within the Properties panel and set it to Paper. This will make the image appear Black & White.
To color an image a single color, change the Fill to that color.
Image by:
Mika
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[@Goorlel]

I wish more people would make helpful vids like this, straight to the point

[@MichaelBullo]

That's very kind of you to say. Thank you.

[@hayaalshahel]

there has never been a video so easy and helpful at the same time as yours! thaaaaanks!!!

[@MichaelBullo]

That's very nice of you to say. Thank you and happy designing.

[@janesantana3671]

simples e objetivo! Muito obrigada.

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you and best of luck with your designs

[@AhmadRizkyAlfian]

I like this kind of simple tutorial but spot on. Love it

[@MichaelBullo]

Thanks mate. I hope it comes in handy with your designs.

[@user-xr9wc3wp6f]

Great tip. Been using indesign for years and didn't know this short cut.

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you. Hope it comes in handy.

[@ElektronicCricket]

Nice trick … easy for a quick result … thanks

[@MichaelBullo]

That's great to hear. Thank you.

[@mmallow6481]

GREAT tutorial! Thank You.... straight to the point :)

[@MichaelBullo]

Thanks for the feedback mate and have a great day :)

[@jolyne8674]

Double click image > properties > Luminosity Color > fill > paper Fill > Select color for tint

[@MichaelBullo]

👍

[@vanessadorminey]

Thank you! So simple!

[@MichaelBullo]

Excellent. Thank you.

[@stephaniejernigan2932]

Thank you so much. Simple, to the point, and very helpful!

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you for that. I hope you are creating some cool stuff in InDesign :)

[@carpathianshepherdess4990]

Thank you! Exactly what I needed to know without any time-wasting. ^_^

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you. Happy to have helped you out.

[@theresasouthern8631]

Genius! Best I've seen yet!

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you Theresa. Have a great day.

[@denisZsuave]

Fantastic, thank you uploader

[@MichaelBullo]

Awesome. Thank you downloader :)

[@LightShadow]

THX for the Great Tutorial, but Adobe could have made it so much simpler by adding PS's Adjustment layers...

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you. In case you don't know, you can easily place a Photoshop file directly into an InDesign file. Change the Photoshop file and it will automatically update in the InDesign file.

[@fyscha]

Perfect - exactly what I needed!! Thank you 😍

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you Iain. Happy to hear this helped you out.

[@rasikhsiddiqui]

Thank You so much!

[@MichaelBullo]

Thanks mate. Hope it helps.

[@Bertoooo]

Great technique!

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you Alberto

[@AlexNyeArt]

Is there a way to avoid the sepia tone and have a true desaturated b&w or no?

[@MichaelBullo]

I don't understand. Are you saying that if you follow the first half of this video you are getting a sepia toned image?

[@AlexNyeArt]

@@MichaelBullo Yeah man, it's super weird! I see it on yours and it happens on my photos as well. Check it yourself. If you screenshot the result and bring into photoshop, you'll see the color picker shows a hint of brown in it.

[@MichaelBullo]

@@AlexNyeArt I just ran some tests using multiple images, including the one I demo in the video. I then screen captured the result and checked it in Photoshop. I got a perfect black and white every time. I agree my result looks a little sepia but that could have been introduced during capture, conversion, compression etc... This could be a colour management issue. Do you know if you are colour managed? I don't want to encourage you to make changes if you are unfamiliar with the concept. One thing you could check is within Adobe Bridge (Edit > Colour Settings).

[@AlexNyeArt]

​@@MichaelBullo Woah, that is very strange! Thanks for checking. You're right, maybe it has something to do with my color settings? Still confusing though. If you're curious here's the screenshot of what I see. Bottom is your youtube video and top is once I made it B&W - drive.google.com/file/d/1rkptBAUoTTCrewDIUuvXfk5hkFw2Itv8/view?usp=share_link

[@MichaelBullo]

@@AlexNyeArt Wow. There is definitely a sepia look going on there. Thanks for sharing the image. What happens if you completely desaturate an image in Photoshop and then place it into InDesign as a test? Are you still getting a sepia look?

[@ZeynelEngin]

vauwwww, amazing tips. thanks mate

[@MichaelBullo]

Cheers mate. Hope you're working on some cool designs.

[@lepacheco]

Amazing!!! Thank you!! 💙

[@MichaelBullo]

That's very kind of you. Thank you.

[@denhamk]

Wow! 🤯 thank you!!

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you. Hope it comes in handy.

[@AutumnMurder]

thank you it works!

[@MichaelBullo]

Great to hear. Thank you.

[@BartSch1pper]

Thank you, very helpful. An issue I'm running into is that this doesn't work with linked pdf's. So if I want to do this with an illustrator diagram and an image the image will turn grayscale, but the pdf will stay in color

[@MichaelBullo]

That's an interesting scenario and one that I haven't explored. I wonder if the easiest option is to just export out a high quality image (JPG, TIFF, etc...) of the PDF from Acrobat. You would then place that image into InDesign.

[@toddyboy]

I've run into this, too... which is an annoying quirk of the program. To work around it, I first set the frame (with no fill colour) to luminosity and leave the image within set to normal. Then I place a white box behind the frame, and I get the colour change. So, same general approach, just one extra step with the added box.

[@MichaelBullo]

@@toddyboy Thanks for posting this Todd. That's a nice solution you've got there. I'm wondering if you guys are experiencing a transparency issue. When Placing a file in InDesign, in the Place dialog box is an option called "Show Import Options". This option can also be temporarily activated by holding down the Shift key when clicking on the Open button. There is a checkbox called "Transparent Background" that hopefully might help.

[@lelocreative8170]

Thank you.

[@MichaelBullo]

Cheers mate

[@leothaking3007]

Thank you so much!

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you Leotha

[@AhmedArtsCalligraphy]

Many thanks Mickael, Excellent video, was looking for for while, is there an option to export my document in " colours ( black and red} not grey scale. while keeping my original images colour?

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you. Here's one possible idea... Draw a rectangle the size of the page and fill it with red. Change its blending mode from Normal to Color by first clicking on the word Opacity within the Properties panel. You can keep this rectangle on its own layer so that you can easily turn its visibility on and off. What do you plan on doing with this? I exported out a PDF as a test and it worked perfectly. However, if I was sending this out for professional printing I would definitely be having a chat with the printer to see if there may be any issues.

[@ampro7781]

thanks a lot

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you

[@nicolayquissanga]

Wooww Obrigadooooo

[@MichaelBullo]

Thank you

[@implosivewaffle3758]

If this needs to be printed. Does this stay by cymk or BW standards? Or will I still need to make sure the image is converted in a different program?

[@MichaelBullo]

How are you printing? Are you sending a PDF to a professional printer? If so, are you using a PDF preset that converts all of your graphics to CMYK?

[@talax26]

By me it turns sepia rather than black and white is there another way to do it true black and white ?

[@MichaelBullo]

I’ve had a similar discussion with others where it turned out what they were creating was indeed black and white but it appeared to be tinted. Try exporting out the file and viewing that in another program, preferably on another device.

[@kevin_dorff]

Does the graphic have to be in a certain format before being tinted? I believe I followed the instructions exactly, but the image doesn't change color when I apply the fill.

[@kevin_dorff]

It seems to be tinting the frame but not the object itself.

[@MichaelBullo]

What image format are you using?

[@kevin_dorff]

@@MichaelBullo JPG. I think I may have figured it out--I had to color it before resizing it 🤷‍♂Thanks!

[@MichaelBullo]

@@kevin_dorff Nice work solving the problem. Happy designing :)

[@thejamesryder3552]

My version is different. I can not find the brightness!! Please, HELP ME!!!!😭😭😭

[@MichaelBullo]

What exact version are you using?

[@thejamesryder3552]

@@MichaelBullo 2020 version

[@MichaelBullo]

@@thejamesryder3552 Can you be very specific about what isn't working? What is "brightness" that you mentioned?

[@isaacstewart5443]

this didnt work for me...

[@MichaelBullo]

Can you provide more details? Did you follow all the steps in the video?

[@mandokir]

What is subtly not made apparent is that you get no preview when first designing the colour swatch. Just another crappy oversight in this buggy and restrictive program.

[@MichaelBullo]

You should get a job at Adobe ;)

[@mandokir]

@@MichaelBullo If I was a product manager at Adobe, the first thing on my list would be fixing the rendering break that occurs whenever a page has any object with fx applied to it, or an image with an alpha channel. Do you know what I'm referring to? Do you know if there is any way to fix the rendering issues that occur under these conditions where it makes all text on the page appear to have an extra 100 weight?

[@MichaelBullo]

@@mandokir I believe I understand your issue. Like when the drop shadow on an image pixelates when you move it around, right? I don't think I can solve that for you but you might want to check... View > Display Performance > High Quality Display Is everything set to the max inside of... Preferences > Display Performance To preview images while resizing... Preferences > Interface > Live Screen Drawing: Immediate

[@mandokir]

@@MichaelBullo I do not believe you understand my issue, but I appreciate you attempting to help anyway. FWIW, yes, everything is set to high in preferences and I always use High Quality Display. The issue is, and maybe this only affects Windows, but any time _any_ object has _any_ FX applied to it, the entire rendering of that entire page changes (for the worse). The same rendering deterioration occurs if a transparent raster image is added to any page. It only affects one page at a time, not the entire document. But it seems you have never experienced this issue. There are some forsaken posts about it in the InDesign forums but nobody cares.

[@MichaelBullo]

@@mandokir OK. I definitely didn't understand. Despite what you've seen in the forums I still recommend you post this issue there along with some screen shots. A lot of very experienced and helpful users hang out there.