IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! My name is Mordy Golding and welcome to
Illustrator Insider Training Coloring Artwork.
| | 00:10 | Many of us take color for granted.
| | 00:12 | Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not
saying that we don't spend a lot of time
| | 00:15 | thinking about color.
| | 00:16 | As designers, color is an important
part of just about anything that we create,
| | 00:21 | but it's more than just a fill attribute.
| | 00:23 | I'll discuss the many ways that you
can actually define and organize color in
| | 00:27 | Illustrator, then we'll explore a world
of color inspiration where we can build
| | 00:32 | piles of colors that
work perfectly for any task.
| | 00:36 | Once you've a solid understanding of
how Illustrator thinks about color, I'll
| | 00:40 | show you how easy it is to
manipulate and modify colors at will.
| | 00:44 | I'll even show you how to convert
colors to grayscale and grayscale back to
| | 00:48 | color, and help you understand basic
color management improving settings.
| | 00:53 | As with all Illustrator Insider
Training courses, I'm assuming that you already
| | 00:57 | have some basic familiarity with
Illustrator, if not, I suggest that you first
| | 01:02 | take a look at one of my other courses
in the lynda.com Online Training Library,
| | 01:06 | Illustrator CS5 Essential Training.
| | 01:09 | Now are you ready for a splash of color? Great!
| | 01:11 | Let's dive into Illustrator
Insider Training Coloring Artwork.
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| Adobe Illustrator: A colorful history| 00:00 | Illustrator has allowed designers to
use color in their designs since version
| | 00:05 | `88, even though at that time, most
designers could only afford grayscale
| | 00:09 | monitors for their computers, but
even though you were able to use colors
| | 00:13 | since the early days of Illustrator, it wasn't
always that easy to actually work with color.
| | 00:17 | For example, if you were creating
colorful artwork that was going to print
| | 00:21 | using four-color process, but at the
last minute decided to print using two
| | 00:26 | spot colors instead, you'd be facing
hours of manual work using features like
| | 00:31 | select same fill color, or select same
stroke color and making changes on an
| | 00:35 | object by object basis.
| | 00:37 | It was also difficult to change
colors that were found inside of patterns,
| | 00:41 | gradients, gradient mesh objects, and symbols.
| | 00:45 | In essence, working with color in
Illustrator was often an exercise in frustration.
| | 00:50 | So with the release of Illustrator CS3,
Adobe set out to make working with color
| | 00:55 | are more rewarding experience
addressing two specific areas of color workflow
| | 01:00 | that designers often struggle with the
most, choosing colors and editing colors.
| | 01:06 | Let's explore these two challenges in detail.
| | 01:09 | When working on a project, designers
will often choose colors that work well
| | 01:13 | with each other in an effort
to develop a color palette.
| | 01:16 | In larger organizations color
palettes may already exist, such as corporate
| | 01:21 | color guidelines, or seasonal colors
that a fashion designer must pick from.
| | 01:25 | Often these colors are then
organized into pairings or groupings.
| | 01:29 | For example, a fashion designer may
create color waves or a collection of colors
| | 01:35 | that are used within a single pattern or print.
| | 01:38 | To help with jobs like these, Adobe
gave Illustrator the ability to offer
| | 01:42 | suggestions to designers about which
colors might work well with each other.
| | 01:46 | In addition, Adobe added the ability to
create color groups allowing designers
| | 01:51 | to organize color more easily.
| | 01:53 | Adobe even created a free web service
called Kuler, which allows designers
| | 01:58 | to share color themes and become
inspired by the color combinations that
| | 02:01 | others have created.
| | 02:03 | While trying to find a nice color theme
for a design can be difficult and even
| | 02:08 | harder challenges officially changing
or modifying colors within a design.
| | 02:12 | Throughout a project color decisions
can change quickly and often based on
| | 02:17 | feedback from clients, creative
directors, and art directors, or just because
| | 02:21 | the designer is
constantly improving on the design.
| | 02:24 | Sometimes you know specifically what
colors you want to change while other
| | 02:29 | times, you might just want to
experiment with a variety of different color
| | 02:32 | combinations to see what works best.
| | 02:35 | To help with this challenge, Adobe
included a powerful engine with an
| | 02:39 | Illustrator that in essence allows you to
separate the color from the rest of the document.
| | 02:44 | This eliminated the need to use
functions like select same fill, rather, you
| | 02:49 | could simply tell Illustrator to find
one color and replace it with another.
| | 02:54 | Even better, to find multiple
colors and replace them with a group of
| | 02:57 | different colors all at once.
| | 03:00 | These new capabilities made it easy
to experiment with color, no matter how
| | 03:04 | colors were created or how they were
used within your documents, in patterns,
| | 03:08 | symbols, gradients,
gradient meshes, or what have you.
| | 03:12 | Taking advantage of this powerful
color engine that was added in Illustrator
| | 03:15 | CS3, we can take the use of color to
new heights and that's what this course,
| | 03:20 | Illustrator Insider Training
Coloring Artwork is all about.
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| Getting the most out of this training| 00:00 | I have structured this series of
courses based on years of teaching Illustrator
| | 00:04 | to many different kinds of
people, from newcomers to experts.
| | 00:07 | The topics aren't haphazardly grouped together;
| | 00:10 | rather, each lesson and each
chapter builds on the previous one.
| | 00:15 | The best way to follow this course is to
watch the movies in order chapter by chapter.
| | 00:20 | Try to resist jumping
around from movie to movie.
| | 00:23 | Although you may pick up a few useful
tips and tricks, if you do jump around,
| | 00:26 | you'll ultimately miss out on what
this training aims to give you, a total
| | 00:30 | understanding of how and
why the tips and tricks work.
| | 00:34 | Now the goal of this training is not
to teach you to how to add glows or drop
| | 00:38 | shadows, or create shiny buttons with
reflections, instead, it's my hope that
| | 00:43 | you'll come to understand the concepts
behind the techniques, so that you can
| | 00:47 | come up with your own solution to the
creative issues that you face everyday.
| | 00:51 | Oh, and one more thing, to help
reinforce your learning throughout the course
| | 00:55 | and to also help you focus on the
important concepts that you'll be learning,
| | 00:59 | I've created a simple worksheet which
you can download as a free exercise file.
| | 01:03 | You can either print out the
worksheet or fill it out in your computer.
| | 01:07 | Now keep the worksheet handy as you
watch each video and as you learn new
| | 01:11 | concepts, fill in the answers.
| | 01:14 | Throughout the training these
important concepts will be highlighted on the
| | 01:17 | screen to help you out.
| | 01:19 | There is also plenty of space on the
worksheet where you can take your notes or
| | 01:23 | jot down questions that you might have.
| | 01:25 | So if you haven't already done so, go
ahead and download the worksheet now.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you have access to the Exercise
files for this course, you might find it
| | 00:04 | easier to copy them to your computer
desktop as I've done here, or anywhere
| | 00:09 | you'd like where they will be easily accessible.
| | 00:12 | The top folder contains subfolders
for each chapter, which themselves
| | 00:17 | contain the Exercise files.
| | 00:19 | If you don't have access to these files,
you can still follow along with your
| | 00:22 | own files, or just sit back and
watch as I proceed through the course.
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| Accessing Kuler from within Illustrator| 00:00 | While it's true that you can use
Kuler to come up with really cool and
| | 00:04 | interesting color themes, and you can
download those files as ASE files or Adobe
| | 00:09 | Swatch Exchange files, which you can
then load into Illustrator, that process is
| | 00:14 | a bit unwieldy, and many times you
quickly want to just find a color to use and
| | 00:18 | then be able to apply that color
directly inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:21 | Well, the good news is, is that Kuler
itself is something that you can access
| | 00:26 | directly from within the Illustrator interface.
| | 00:28 | Let me show you how to do that.
| | 00:30 | Once the Illustrator is running and
I just have right now just any blank
| | 00:34 | document open, I can go to my Window menu and
I can choose Extensions, and then choose Kuler.
| | 00:40 | This actually loads a panel here inside
of Illustrator, which actually is what
| | 00:45 | we call a Flash-based panel.
| | 00:47 | It's interactive and the information
that I am seeing inside of that panel is
| | 00:51 | actually being fed live through the Internet.
| | 00:53 | So, for example, right now, I can
actually scroll through these different themes
| | 00:57 | that are inside of Kuler or more
importantly, I can do a search.
| | 01:00 | For example, if I want to search on
golf, I will go head and do that and I
| | 01:05 | will now search to all the themes inside of
Kuler that have the tag, golf, inside of it.
| | 01:11 | But if I want to find the themes that I
myself have created, I can do a search
| | 01:15 | of my own username, in my case, it's Mordy.
| | 01:17 | So if I do a search on that, I will
find all the themes that I created.
| | 01:21 | I'll even do a search here on lynda,
because in my lynda.com Online Training
| | 01:25 | title called Kuler Essential Training,
I've had people actually go ahead and
| | 01:29 | create their own themes and tag it with
the keyword lynda, so I can easily track
| | 01:34 | who is creating these colors who
have already taken my training course.
| | 01:38 | Now if I like any these, for example,
this one here called Hotkisses looks
| | 01:42 | really interesting, I can now scroll
here to the bottom of my Kuler panel and
| | 01:46 | click on this button over here to
actually add that entire color theme directly
| | 01:50 | to my Swatches panel in my document, I
now can actually access those colors.
| | 01:55 | Now it's important to realize that I'm
right now working in a CMYK document;
| | 01:59 | the colors themselves inside
of Kuler are going to be RGB.
| | 02:03 | So I may see some color changes or
shifts that happen when I actually bring
| | 02:07 | colors from Kuler
directly into this CMYK document.
| | 02:11 | Still, I have a really easy way now
from within Illustrator directly to access
| | 02:16 | any of the color themes
that I might find on Kuler.
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|
|
1. Core Color ConceptsGetting to know the color models| 00:00 | Before we get started learning how to
actually use color inside of Illustrator,
| | 00:04 | we have to have a discussion about
color models, these are also called color
| | 00:08 | modes and we maybe familiar with some
basic ones like RGB and CMYK, for example.
| | 00:13 | Now first, let's understand
what a color model actually is.
| | 00:18 | Basically a color model is simply a
mathematical way that we can describe color.
| | 00:23 | For example, using the RGB color model,
we actually mix values of red, green,
| | 00:28 | and blue to achieve any color that we want.
| | 00:31 | Whereas, in the CMYK color model, we combine
values of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
| | 00:37 | Now one of the first times that we as
Illustrator users need to make a decision
| | 00:41 | about what color model we want to use,
is when you first create a new document.
| | 00:45 | For example, if I go to the File menu
here and I choose New I'll see that in the
| | 00:49 | New Document dialog box, if I have the
Advanced options visible, I can see a set
| | 00:55 | here called Color mode.
| | 00:56 | Now an Illustrator document must be set
to either CMYK or RGB, those are the two
| | 01:01 | choices that we have.
| | 01:03 | Now a lot of people think that just
CMYK means print and RGB means web, that's
| | 01:08 | not necessarily the case.
| | 01:09 | The main reasons why Illustrator forces
you to choose one of these twos, because
| | 01:13 | it can sometimes be bad if we have a
single document that contains both a
| | 01:17 | mixture of colors that are used with
CMYK and colors that are used with RGB.
| | 01:23 | Because usually, when I print my document,
or I output my document I printing it
| | 01:28 | to a single source, so I might see
color shifts that are involved there.
| | 01:31 | If you go back to many years ago,
especially before the days of consistent color
| | 01:35 | management, it was difficult for a
designer or prepress operator to control the
| | 01:40 | color that they got out of their computers.
| | 01:43 | So when Illustrator 9 was released,
Adobe made it so that each Illustrator
| | 01:47 | document had to be either CMYK or RGB and
that's where we have these options here.
| | 01:53 | But I will tell you that there is some
value in actually mixing these two color
| | 01:56 | models in a single document.
| | 01:58 | For example, in the world of
packaging we may find that some artwork we'll
| | 02:02 | actually be printing using both
process colors and also some spot colors.
| | 02:07 | Now those spot colors maybe things
like metallic colors or pastel colors or
| | 02:12 | things that are very, very rich, and
that can't be actually created or even
| | 02:15 | simulated in the world the CMYK.
| | 02:18 | If you force the entire document to
be CMYK, then you really have no way to
| | 02:22 | proof or even simulate those brighter colors.
| | 02:25 | In fact, we'll learn throughout this
title that Illustrator actually does
| | 02:29 | allow you to get into a situation where you
can have mixed color models in a single document.
| | 02:34 | The way that you do that is, for
example, you might create a CMYK document,
| | 02:38 | but you would actually place an
image and that image will be linked, it
| | 02:41 | wouldn't be embedded, but it will be
linked and that image that is linked,
| | 02:44 | could be an RGB image.
| | 02:46 | So in essence what I'm getting at here
is that when you create a new document,
| | 02:49 | then you choose a color mode be a CMYK or RGB.
| | 02:54 | It's the artboard itself
that's limited to that color model.
| | 02:57 | However, Illustrator still
has the ability to link content.
| | 03:01 | Since that content doesn't actually
belong to Illustrator, it's actually
| | 03:03 | referencing an external file, that file
can actually have a separate color model.
| | 03:08 | There are also additional ways to me to
actually create a single document that
| | 03:12 | has colors using different color
models inside of it, and again, we'll visit
| | 03:16 | that throughout the title.
| | 03:17 | For now though, note that when you
create a new document, you must choose
| | 03:21 | either CMYK or RGB.
| | 03:23 | This is really purely for consistency.
| | 03:25 | I don't want to get into a situation
where I might create some artwork and then
| | 03:29 | experience color shifts later on.
| | 03:32 | Now, since most print artwork actually
does print using CMYK, and since most web
| | 03:37 | designs actually do get displayed on
monitors which use RGB, we find that
| | 03:43 | general kind of umbrella or
this generalization that just says;
| | 03:46 | well basically, if you're doing print
design, use CMYK, and if you doing web
| | 03:51 | design, use RGB, but what I want you
to remember here is that I'm simply
| | 03:55 | choosing a color model.
| | 03:56 | Meaning, I want my artboard to
use a certain color model here.
| | 03:59 | But don't mistake these Color modes for
actual different workflows like print and web.
| | 04:04 | In fact, don't assume that
Illustrator only supports CMYK or RGB either.
| | 04:09 | Once I create my document, and I'm
going to create this document right here
| | 04:12 | using the CMYK color model, I'll find
that when it comes to actually defining
| | 04:16 | colors inside of Illustrator, I
have more color models at my disposal.
| | 04:20 | I'll open up my Swatches panel right here, and
let's say I just want to define a new swatch.
| | 04:24 | So I'm going to go to this button down
here at the bottom, choose to create a
| | 04:27 | New Swatch, and you'll notice
that where it says Color mode;
| | 04:30 | that I want to create a color here I can
choose between these different color models.
| | 04:35 | I've Grayscale, RGB, HSB,
CMYK, Lab, and Web Safe RGB.
| | 04:42 | Now again, these aren't color modes
that my document is in, these are color
| | 04:46 | modes that I can apply to the colors that I
define here as swatches inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:51 | Now, Grayscale is simply how much the
different values, there is actually 256
| | 04:55 | levels of gray that exist in a single
channel, but we usually measure Grayscale
| | 05:00 | as numbers from 0 to a 100.
| | 05:02 | Zero being white, 100 being
black, and any number in-between as
| | 05:07 | different shades of gray.
| | 05:09 | Now RGB, HSB, and Web Safe
RGB are very much the same.
| | 05:15 | RGB of course, standing for a red, green,
and blue, but HSB is just a different
| | 05:19 | way to interpret that.
| | 05:20 | You know the brain doesn't really focus
on red, green, and blue in a way that we
| | 05:25 | can actually kind of come up with colors.
| | 05:27 | HSB would stands for a hue, saturation,
and brightness is a far more intuitive
| | 05:31 | way of understanding how color works,
more importantly, how we can define color.
| | 05:36 | A little bit later inside this chapter,
we'll actually go into detail about
| | 05:40 | exactly how HSB works, and more
importantly, how it's going to help us
| | 05:44 | throughout the rest of this title.
| | 05:46 | Now Web Safe RGB is simply a subset of
RGB colors, it's actually 216 specific
| | 05:53 | colors that are consistent across both Mac
and Windows platforms at the system level.
| | 05:59 | The thought-process behind Web safe RGB
was simply a way that we can guarantee
| | 06:04 | a lowest common denominator, or a set
of colors that will always be found on
| | 06:08 | any computer system.
| | 06:10 | In reality, the whole concept of Web Safe
RGB colors doesn't really apply much today.
| | 06:15 | And that's because nowadays most
people have monitors that can display many,
| | 06:19 | many different colors.
| | 06:21 | Now it's important to realize that RGB,
HSB, CMYK, and Web Safe RGB, are what we
| | 06:27 | refer to as Device Dependent Color models.
| | 06:31 | That means that the color that we
actually get depends on the device that you're
| | 06:35 | viewing that color on.
| | 06:36 | For example, it's possible for me to
create a color on my computer screen using
| | 06:41 | very specific CMYK values.
| | 06:44 | I can then go over to my friend's
computer type in those exact same CMYK values,
| | 06:49 | but the color that I see on
the screen won't be the same.
| | 06:52 | That could be, because the
manufacturer of the actual monitor itself is
| | 06:56 | different, and each manufacturer may
build their monitors in the way that
| | 07:00 | produce a different type of color.
| | 07:02 | The same thing applies to printers.
| | 07:04 | I can take a single file that has CMYK
colors and print it to one printer and
| | 07:09 | get one set of results.
| | 07:10 | And I can print that same file to a
different printer and get different results.
| | 07:15 | It's the same CMYK values that are
being used to actually print those colors,
| | 07:19 | but I actually see two different results.
| | 07:22 | That's because what I see, what I
perceive that called to be, depends on the
| | 07:26 | device that's actually creating that color.
| | 07:28 | In these cases it's the printers.
| | 07:30 | Now there is one other color model here
that's listed inside of this dialog box
| | 07:34 | which is called Lab.
| | 07:36 | Lab which is broken down to three
channels L stands for lightness, and then we
| | 07:40 | have A, and B channels.
| | 07:42 | A contains reds and greens and
B contains blues and yellows.
| | 07:45 | It's a different kind of color model completely.
| | 07:48 | In fact, Lab is referred to as a
device independent color model.
| | 07:54 | Scientists who actually developed Lab
is to define color based on how humans
| | 07:58 | actually perceive that color.
| | 08:00 | So in reality, Lab is a far more
accurate way to describe what an exact color is.
| | 08:05 | However, because our computer monitors
and our printers, and devices that we
| | 08:08 | use all are RGB and CMYK, all color
must eventually be translated to those
| | 08:14 | different color models.
| | 08:15 | Now why are you even
talking about Lab here at all?
| | 08:18 | The answer is that later on in this
title we may find out that Lab can help us
| | 08:22 | in getting more accurate color on our devices.
| | 08:25 | However, you would ever actually use Lab
to define a swatch inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:30 | In fact, for the most part inside of
Illustrator, you'll probably define colors
| | 08:34 | using CMYK, RGB, or Web Safe RGB.
| | 08:39 | And as we're soon going to see later
on in this chapter, you may find that
| | 08:42 | working inside the HSB color model, is
far more intuitive for defining colors
| | 08:47 | and you may define your swatches using that.
| | 08:50 | So that's a brief overview of the color
models that are supported inside of the
| | 08:53 | Illustrator workflow.
| | 08:55 | Remember, that each document can be set
to either CMYK or RGB, and when I define
| | 08:59 | my swatches, I can use any of these
color models that you see here as well.
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| Understanding the difference between process and custom colors| 00:00 | When working with Illustrator, it's
important to realize that we have two kinds
| | 00:04 | of colors that we can use.
| | 00:07 | We have something called Process Colors,
and then we've something called Spot Colors.
| | 00:12 | Now it's important to realize that
Process is also a word that is sometimes
| | 00:16 | referred to as four color process
printing or CMYK, but in Illustrator, process
| | 00:22 | has a bigger meaning.
| | 00:23 | Process means that the color
itself is derived from a combination of
| | 00:29 | other primary colors.
| | 00:30 | So with Illustrator specifically, Process
Colors are defined as a mixture of primary colors.
| | 00:36 | Now the primary colors in CMYK
are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.
| | 00:41 | If you're working in an RGB document
then defining process swatches would be
| | 00:45 | using values of red, green and blue.
| | 00:48 | However, the colors that you're
trying to create are always being generated
| | 00:52 | using a mixture of these primary colors.
| | 00:54 | For example, in this document here, if I
go over to my Swatches panel and I want
| | 00:58 | to create a new Swatch, since I'm now
inside of an RGB document, Illustrator
| | 01:03 | show me my RGB color model right over
here, and I can choose a color by mixing
| | 01:08 | various percentages of red,
green and blue colors.
| | 01:12 | If I'm working in a CMYK document where
I want to define the CMYK color, I would
| | 01:16 | choose my CMYK color model and now I
can choose a color by combining various
| | 01:22 | percentages of cyan,
magenta, yellow and black ink.
| | 01:26 | So when we talk about Process Colors
inside of Illustrator, we're basically
| | 01:29 | just taking a color and defining its
appearance by using different values of
| | 01:34 | other primary colors.
| | 01:35 | Now I'm going to click Cancel here, and
let's focus on this concept that what a
| | 01:39 | Spot Color is inside Illustrator.
| | 01:41 | To make it even easier to understand I
sometimes refer to Spot Colors as custom colors.
| | 01:47 | In other words, a Spot Color
is a color that you define;
| | 01:50 | it's not made up necessarily by
any mixture of any primary colors.
| | 01:55 | In fact, their primary use for Spot
Colors is for when you want to tell a
| | 01:58 | printer on press that they should mix
a custom ink, where they should create
| | 02:02 | something that is special
just what you would define.
| | 02:05 | Let me give you the couple of examples.
| | 02:07 | Let's say you wanted to create a
business card and you wanted the background of
| | 02:11 | that business card to be red.
| | 02:13 | Well, we all know that there are many
different shades of red, so I might, if
| | 02:17 | I'm working in a CMYK document,
create a mixture of several colors, because
| | 02:21 | magenta is not purely red.
| | 02:23 | So what I may do is combine magenta and
yellow together to create a nice rich red color.
| | 02:30 | Now that would work fine if the
actual business card that I'm creating is
| | 02:34 | going to be printed on a press using CMYK
colors, meaning four different colors on press.
| | 02:41 | However, if I'm doing a business card,
I may decide that I don't want to spend
| | 02:44 | the money on printing four colors,
I only want to print two colors.
| | 02:48 | May be I want to print black and then a red ink.
| | 02:51 | So how I would I tell my printer
exactly what shade of red I want?
| | 02:55 | So designers and printers
usually rely on a standard.
| | 02:58 | For example, there is a
library of colors called Pantone;
| | 03:02 | it's basically a large book that has a
whole bunch of different colors printed
| | 03:06 | inside of it, both a designer and a
printer both have the same copy of this book.
| | 03:10 | So a designer may choose a certain
number of red, for example, they may choose
| | 03:16 | Pantone 185, and then they would tell
the printer, they want the background of
| | 03:20 | the business card to be printed
using that Pantone 185 colored ink.
| | 03:25 | Now the printer having the same book on
his end would look up the values or the
| | 03:30 | settings for this red ink and basically
mix an ink to match that color exactly.
| | 03:37 | However, when that particular job runs
through the press, instead of putting
| | 03:41 | cyan, magenta, yellow or black on the
press, the printer will just have black
| | 03:46 | ink and then another set of ink,
which is this red ink that's being custom
| | 03:50 | mixed for this one job.
| | 03:52 | When you're using Illustrator, the way
that you define that custom color is by
| | 03:56 | creating a Spot color.
| | 03:58 | Now in reality, a Spot color
may not even be a color at all;
| | 04:02 | there are different
processes that are used in printing.
| | 04:04 | For example, something called a varnish.
| | 04:07 | A varnish is a clear liquid that is
added to the paper to allow the paper to
| | 04:12 | have a glossy finish to it.
| | 04:14 | Now what some designers may do is they
may ask for that glossy finish to be only
| | 04:18 | applied in certain areas of the design.
| | 04:21 | In other words, you'd have some parts
of the page that appear flat or matte and
| | 04:26 | some parts of the page
will have a glossy finish.
| | 04:28 | The way that you would specify the
areas that are going to print with just that
| | 04:32 | varnish, would be defined inside
of Illustrator as a Spot Color.
| | 04:36 | Now in the world of printing, once
you've created your design here inside of
| | 04:40 | Illustrator, a printer would take
your file and create separations.
| | 04:44 | It means that I would take my
design and have that design converted to
| | 04:48 | different values of in the case of printing,
different values of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
| | 04:54 | These separations get printed out of
Illustrator as four separate sheet of paper.
| | 04:58 | We refer to those four
separate sheets as plates.
| | 05:01 | So you would have one plate for cyan,
one plate for magenta, one plate for
| | 05:06 | yellow and one plate for black.
| | 05:08 | In essence, a Spot color is
just a named plate that you create.
| | 05:13 | So, for example, if I would have
created some kind of a job that had only black
| | 05:17 | plus a red color, when I actually
print separations, if I've used the Spot
| | 05:22 | Color, I would get one plate for
black and one plate for my Spot Color.
| | 05:27 | It's entirely possible to mix the two,
so I can have a single document that has
| | 05:31 | cyan, magenta, yellow and black, but
that also has additional spot plates.
| | 05:37 | There are other times when I may
only use Spot Colors, and I won't use
| | 05:41 | Process Colors at all.
| | 05:42 | In the world of apparel design, for
example, I may turn all of my artwork into
| | 05:46 | specific Spot Colors.
| | 05:48 | So, for example, if I were screen
printing artwork onto a T-shirt, I would need
| | 05:53 | to generate a separate plate for
each of the colors that I'm using.
| | 05:56 | Now the colors that I'm using are not
to be specifically only cyan, magenta,
| | 06:00 | yellow and black, in fact, they
probably will never be those colors.
| | 06:03 | It's probably going to be custom
colors that I choose for each T-shirt design
| | 06:07 | that I want to create.
| | 06:09 | So I will create a Spot Color for
every color that I'm using in my design.
| | 06:14 | Now since Spot Colors are primarily
used to create separate plates during the
| | 06:18 | separation process, and since the
separation process is not necessary for
| | 06:22 | designs that are being displayed on a
computer screen, it's very rare that a web
| | 06:26 | designer, for example, or someone who
designs stuff for video, whatever need,
| | 06:30 | they'd use Spot Colors.
| | 06:32 | Still, whenever you create a Swatch
inside of Illustrator, just important to
| | 06:36 | realize here where it says, color type,
we always need to choose between Process
| | 06:40 | Colors or Spots Colors, and those are
the two kinds of colors that I can create
| | 06:44 | inside of Illustrator and
understanding a difference between them will help
| | 06:48 | avoid some confusion later on.
| | 06:50 | Now in the next chapter, we'll actually
go through the process of defining these
| | 06:54 | colors, both Process Colors and Spot
Colors, and maybe at that point with some
| | 06:59 | specific examples, if you already don't
understand the difference between these
| | 07:02 | two, that may be will better solidify
you understanding of these two settings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding how the HSB color wheel works| 00:00 | Now until this point, we have spoken
about color models that include CMYK and
| | 00:05 | RGB, and again, these are just ways
that we can think about describing color.
| | 00:11 | Now another way that we can describe
color inside of Illustrator is using a
| | 00:15 | color model called HSB.
| | 00:17 | Now I am going to create a new
document here inside of Illustrator and you'll
| | 00:21 | note that when I create a new document
I don't have the ability to specify HSB
| | 00:25 | as a color mode for my document, because
as we are going to find out HSB is just
| | 00:30 | kind of like within RGB.
| | 00:32 | So it's a way for me to describe color
inside of Illustrator, but it's not a
| | 00:35 | color model that I would use for a document.
| | 00:38 | So Illustrator is always going to have RGB
and CMYK as the color mode of my document.
| | 00:44 | When I define colors though, I am going
to click OK here to create my document,
| | 00:48 | I am going to find it's very difficult
to imagine how a color might appear by
| | 00:53 | mixing values of RGB, and that's
because RGB are really just values of light.
| | 00:59 | When we were in school and we
learned about creating colors using primary
| | 01:02 | colors, we learned that, for example,
mixing red and blue make purple and red
| | 01:08 | and yellow make orange and blue and
yellow make green, but RGB doesn't really
| | 01:13 | work in that regard.
| | 01:15 | So if I knew I wanted to mix let's say,
for example, a yellow color, how would I
| | 01:18 | do that inside of RGB.
| | 01:20 | I can kind of study the way that RGB
works and understand how light works and
| | 01:25 | kind of wrap my head around that.
| | 01:26 | But the reality is that it's not a
very intuitive way for me to choose color,
| | 01:30 | and that's one of the
primary reasons why HSB exists.
| | 01:33 | It's just an easier way
for us to define the color.
| | 01:36 | In fact, the Color Picker that you have
seen in Illustrator over all these years
| | 01:40 | also can work in HSB.
| | 01:42 | In fact, if I double-click here on the
Fill color inside of Illustrator that
| | 01:45 | brings up the Color Picker, and I can
see that I have the HSB values here.
| | 01:50 | Let's first understand our
breakdown exactly what HSB stands for.
| | 01:55 | It stands for Hue, Saturation and Brightness.
| | 02:00 | Now I am also going to find out in a
few moments, Illustrator maps HSB colors
| | 02:05 | around the wheel but as we see here in
the Color Picker, we have things broken
| | 02:08 | down inside of like a rectangle.
| | 02:09 | In fact, we kind of have two parts over here.
| | 02:12 | We have this square here of color, and
then we have a whole bunch of colors here
| | 02:16 | that looks almost like a rainbow
on a little thin strip over here.
| | 02:19 | Now you will notice over here that the
H which is the Hue is referring to this
| | 02:23 | little strip over here.
| | 02:25 | The U could be any of the color
that appears inside of the spectrum.
| | 02:28 | If we think about the rainbow, for
example, we have all those colors.
| | 02:32 | Now HSB really does always work in the
concept of a wheel, so if I think about a
| | 02:37 | circle, for example, and I have 360
degrees of that circle, any different
| | 02:42 | variation with that degree would
represent a different type of Hue.
| | 02:46 | So if we can almost think about HSB for
a moment here, the Hue is 360 different
| | 02:52 | possible colors that exist on that wheel.
| | 02:55 | What we have here in this
Color Picker is just one bar;
| | 02:58 | it's kind of the wheel that's kind of
have been flattened down or think of like
| | 03:01 | a rainbow that's just been straightened out.
| | 03:03 | Well, I start over here with these reds
and I go through these colors here, and
| | 03:07 | notice that as I move down over here
the only value that's changing is the H
| | 03:11 | value or the Hue value.
| | 03:12 | I am going to set this
above here towards the top.
| | 03:15 | Now you will notice that I have a
little bit of a circle right over here and if
| | 03:18 | I drag this circle here towards the
right, notice that right now the only value
| | 03:23 | that is changing is the Saturation value.
| | 03:25 | See over here where I have the S value.
| | 03:28 | If I go ahead now and I drag this left
and right, I am keeping the same Hue,
| | 03:33 | so basically I'm dealing here with a red color,
but I'm adjusting just the Saturation value.
| | 03:39 | As we go to the right, I am increasing
the Saturation, and as we go to the left,
| | 03:42 | I am decreasing the Saturation.
| | 03:44 | But pay attention also what's happening here.
| | 03:46 | What's this corner over here?
| | 03:47 | this corner is white, so all the
saturation basically is telling me is that
| | 03:51 | right now on the far right I have my
solid color or what we would refer to as
| | 03:56 | our pure color, and then if I bring this
Saturation level down over here towards
| | 04:00 | 0 what I'm doing is, I am
adding white to my pure color.
| | 04:04 | So the Saturation value refers to the amount of
white that is present inside of my pure color.
| | 04:10 | A Saturation value of 0 means that my
color actually does not exist at all and
| | 04:15 | all I have is complete white.
| | 04:17 | Now if I start to move this circle
down instead of left and right, but I am
| | 04:21 | moving it up or down, notice now that
the only value that's changing is the
| | 04:24 | Brightness value, that's
the B value right over here.
| | 04:28 | As I clicked over here towards the top
over here, I have no black in my color
| | 04:32 | whatsoever, and as I go down
I am starting to add black.
| | 04:35 | So the Brightness setting refers to the amount
of black that I have inside of my pure color.
| | 04:41 | Now again, things are laid out here
using these squares and rectangle, so it's a
| | 04:44 | bit difficult to visualize exactly how
HSB works, because HSB works around the
| | 04:49 | color wheel or something that's round.
| | 04:51 | So I am actually going to
cancel out of this for a moment.
| | 04:54 | And I am going to go to my SWATCHES
panel and let's actually see how Illustrator
| | 04:58 | interprets working with HSB.
| | 05:00 | Now normally, if I click over here to
create a new swatch, I can choose to
| | 05:04 | define a swatch using HSB.
| | 05:06 | And notice over here that
I have the three sliders.
| | 05:08 | Again, the H refers to the Hue,
which is measured in 0-360 degrees.
| | 05:14 | And then I have Saturation
values and Brightness values.
| | 05:17 | So again, what I'm basically doing is
I am choosing an actual pure color, and
| | 05:21 | then I'm choosing how much white or
how much black I want in that color.
| | 05:25 | So it's much easier to visualize color
using HSB, than it would be trying to mix
| | 05:30 | different values of red, green and blue lights.
| | 05:33 | However, I'm still dealing
with these sliders over here.
| | 05:35 | Let's actually cancel out of this for a
moment and let's see how Illustrator now
| | 05:39 | allows us to live inside of this world
of HSB, but using our color wheel in a
| | 05:43 | far more meaningful way.
| | 05:44 | I am actually going to come
over here to my SWATCHES panel.
| | 05:46 | I am going to click on just the red
swatch here, it's RGB Red, it created a RGB
| | 05:50 | document here, and I am going to come
down here to the bottom of the panel where
| | 05:55 | I have this folder with the plus sign on it.
| | 05:57 | It's called New Color Group and we are
going to spend a lot of time dealing with
| | 06:00 | creating color groups inside
of Illustrator in Chapter 03.
| | 06:03 | But for now, I am just going to click
on this button and since I have that red
| | 06:07 | swatch color already selected, I am
going to now create a new color group with
| | 06:12 | that swatch inside of it.
| | 06:13 | I am just going to click OK in this
dialog box, I don't really care about the
| | 06:16 | name for this, and really what I want
to do is I just want to have a single
| | 06:19 | color group that has this one red color
inside of it, it's called RGB Red. Great!
| | 06:24 | Now inside of Illustrator I know that I
can double-click on a swatch itself to
| | 06:27 | actually modify the swatch, but if I
only have one color inside of my group, I
| | 06:32 | get this dialog box here called Edit Colors.
| | 06:35 | I am just going to cancel out of here
for a moment here because I want to show
| | 06:37 | you that if you double-click on the folder
itself that brings up this Edit Color dialog box.
| | 06:44 | Now what I see here is actually a wheel
of color, we call this the color wheel,
| | 06:48 | and it's using HSB to
define this color right now.
| | 06:52 | So now we can visualize really
what HSB is on the different level.
| | 06:56 | This is going to be important
throughout the entire title, because we are going
| | 06:59 | to find out that Illustrator allows us
to control color using this method or
| | 07:04 | this idea about how to work with color.
| | 07:07 | Now the color that I have selected right now,
the color swatch that I have is that red color.
| | 07:11 | Red happens to be at the
top of the wheel itself.
| | 07:14 | In fact, if we measure the degrees in a
circle, you know we have 0-360 degrees,
| | 07:20 | so Illustrator puts that point over
here of 360, right here on the right side
| | 07:23 | here, or the 3 o'clock position.
| | 07:25 | So instead of the 12 o'clock position
where this might be rotated towards the
| | 07:28 | top, just imagine right now that color
wheel kind of lying on its side, so at
| | 07:33 | the 3 o'clock position is where the
color wheel starts and this over here would
| | 07:36 | be the purest red that I would
have in this HSB color model.
| | 07:40 | Now if you look at my sliders here at
the bottom I am currently now looking at
| | 07:43 | the HSB sliders, as we will find that
Illustrator does let us switch between
| | 07:47 | different kind of sliders, but for here
I want to focus on HSB, because again,
| | 07:51 | this is going to be another
way to visualize how HSB works.
| | 07:55 | And the more that we understand what
this color wheel does, the more we would be
| | 07:58 | able to come back to this color wheel
at any time, to modify our colors even if
| | 08:02 | we are not using HSB.
| | 08:03 | It's just important for us to
understand what makes this color wheel tick.
| | 08:07 | Let's focus on the Hue.
| | 08:09 | We before said that the Hue itself is
measured in values from 0-360 and kind of
| | 08:14 | represents the different pure
color that exists on this color wheel.
| | 08:18 | So if I adjust this slider here what you
will see that's going to happen is that
| | 08:21 | the red will start moving clockwise or
counterclockwise around this color wheel.
| | 08:27 | So I am just going to click and drag on
this slider and you will see that right
| | 08:30 | now I am changing the Hue of the color.
| | 08:33 | So, for example, if you are working
with HSB, you know that something in the
| | 08:36 | 60s, for example, would be a yellow
color, but basically as I move this top
| | 08:40 | slider that Hue is basically being adjusted.
| | 08:43 | So I am going in a clockwise or
counterclockwise direction to get that kind of color change.
| | 08:49 | Now I am going to go back here to
360, which is that pure red color.
| | 08:52 | Now I am going to come down to the
Saturation value, and remember, saturation
| | 08:56 | just means that I'm able
to add white to my color.
| | 08:58 | Now right now at 100% that means
I don't have any white whatsoever.
| | 09:02 | But as I drag this slider here to the
left, I'm starting to add more and more
| | 09:06 | white to my color, or we can also
think of it as desaturating the color.
| | 09:11 | Now if I am at the value of 0, my
color is completely gone, it's like pure
| | 09:15 | white at this point.
| | 09:17 | But notice that as I adjust the slider,
the actual Hue is staying the same, it's
| | 09:22 | right now at that 360 degrees and all
I'm doing is I moving that little circle
| | 09:26 | here towards the center of the circle.
| | 09:28 | So as I go towards the centre of
the circle, I add more white, or I
| | 09:32 | desaturate my color.
| | 09:33 | As I go towards the outside of the
circle, I am adding saturation or increasing
| | 09:38 | saturation, and I am moving
towards the outside of the circle here.
| | 09:42 | Now let's focus on Brightness.
| | 09:44 | Again, Brightness just determines how
much black I have inside of my color, and
| | 09:48 | at a 100%, it means that I have no black at all.
| | 09:51 | If I click on the slider and I started
to move towards the left here, notice
| | 09:55 | that the little swatch itself starts to
get dark until it goes completely black.
| | 09:58 | So as I move towards the right here, I
am removing black from my color and as I
| | 10:03 | go towards the left, I'm
adding black to the color.
| | 10:06 | So those are the settings that
I have when working with HSB.
| | 10:09 | I have the Hue, and then I have
Saturation and Brightness levels.
| | 10:13 | Now again I'm kind of taking you
through these steps because even if we don't
| | 10:17 | actually use HSB on a day-to-day basis
inside of Illustrator, we are still going
| | 10:21 | to come back to these concepts about
how this color wheel works inside of
| | 10:24 | Illustrator, because we're going to find
out that we can easily swap out the HSB
| | 10:30 | for any colors that we
decide that we want to work with.
| | 10:32 | In other words, if we understand
how this color wheel works inside of
| | 10:36 | Illustrator, we unlock a tremendous
amount of potential and our ability to
| | 10:40 | control any color inside
of our document at any time.
| | 10:44 | In fact, as you'll find out throughout
this entire title, we are going to be
| | 10:48 | coming back to this color
wheel time and time again.
| | 10:51 | It may seem a little complex at first,
but don't worry, once you understand its
| | 10:55 | standard settings, you'll find that this
is probably going to be one of the most
| | 10:58 | important and exciting
features to use inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with color harmonies| 00:01 | As we start to work more and more with
color inside of Illustrator, we will find
| | 00:05 | that that just defining color is not enough.
| | 00:08 | It's very rare that you have a single
document that only uses one color inside
| | 00:12 | of it, more often we have several colors
and these colors need to work with each other.
| | 00:17 | For example, we are all familiar with
this concept of colors that clash, colors
| | 00:22 | that just don't look that great
when they're put up side-by-side.
| | 00:26 | So one thing that we can do is we can
start to categorize colors or put colors
| | 00:30 | into a single group and those colors
share some kind of attributes, may be
| | 00:34 | they are all bright colors or maybe
they all fit within a certain palette or
| | 00:38 | so on and so forth.
| | 00:39 | What we are doing at that point is
we're taking different colors and we are
| | 00:43 | stating that these colors
somehow belong to each other.
| | 00:46 | In Illustrator, whenever we have this
kind of setting where we actually take
| | 00:50 | several colors and we say that these
colors belong inside of some kind of a
| | 00:54 | group, we refer to that as a color harmony.
| | 00:57 | Another word that we use some times
is something called the color rule.
| | 01:01 | Now for the most part, color harmonies
are defined relationships between colors.
| | 01:07 | In other words, there is no such
thing as a good harmony or bad harmony.
| | 01:10 | If I decide to put two colors in my
document, blue and green, I am telling
| | 01:14 | Illustrator that now I've created this harmony.
| | 01:17 | That harmony contains the
blue color and the green color.
| | 01:19 | But as we are going to find out inside
of Illustrator, there are already some
| | 01:23 | basic scientific ways of
defining harmonies for colors.
| | 01:27 | For example, complementary colors
when mapped onto a color wheel appear
| | 01:32 | completely opposite each
other on the color wheel itself.
| | 01:35 | As we are going to find out.
| | 01:36 | we can use this all to our
advantage inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:39 | In fact, let me show you.
| | 01:40 | I am going to go here to my SWATCHES panel.
| | 01:42 | This happens to be working right now
on the RGB document and I am going to go
| | 01:46 | over to this color group right over here.
| | 01:48 | It's called the Web Color Group.
| | 01:49 | I am just going to double-click on the
folder icon right here and that's going
| | 01:53 | to bring up this Edit Colors dialog box.
| | 01:55 | And we've already seen this color wheel,
which right now is set to the HSB color wheel.
| | 02:00 | What I have basically right now is all
the colors that appear inside of that
| | 02:04 | group mapped onto this wheel.
| | 02:06 | This right now is a color harmony;
| | 02:08 | there is nothing good or bad
about a particular harmony.
| | 02:11 | I just somehow indicated to
Illustrator that these colors belong together.
| | 02:16 | If I am a pretty good designer, I
might get a harmony that looks great;
| | 02:20 | if I am a pretty bad designer, I may
create colors inside of a harmony that
| | 02:24 | clash with each other.
| | 02:25 | Again, a harmony doesn't
mean that the colors look good;
| | 02:28 | a harmony just means that I have some kind
of defined relationship between those colors.
| | 02:33 | But I really don't want to focus on
this Web Color Group right here, which is
| | 02:36 | actually the default RGB document,
when I created this new document.
| | 02:40 | Instead, I want to move over here to
the top of this dialog box where I have a
| | 02:44 | little bit of an arrow here.
| | 02:45 | Notice over here there is a setting
here called Harmony Rules, and if I click
| | 02:48 | on this, Illustrator shows me a variety
actually 23 different types of Harmony Rules.
| | 02:55 | Let's look at the most basic one
right here called Complementary.
| | 02:58 | Complementary is the ability to
basically have two colors that are exactly
| | 03:03 | opposite to each other on the color wheel.
| | 03:05 | Now what does this mean
exactly that I've defined as harmony?
| | 03:08 | I basically now have these two colors,
and as I move one of these colors on
| | 03:12 | the color wheel, Illustrator automatically
finds out what the complement of that color is.
| | 03:18 | You see, no matter where I move this,
I'm always going to get the complementary
| | 03:21 | color chosen for me automatically.
| | 03:23 | This is a predefined relationship of colors
called Complementary, as I choose one color;
| | 03:29 | Illustrator will automatically
for me choose its complement.
| | 03:33 | Let's choose a different harmony here.
| | 03:35 | I am going to go down to, for
example, here, Analogous colors.
| | 03:39 | These are colors that have the exact
same saturation values, the same basic
| | 03:45 | brightness values, but they have just
a little bit of a different hue value.
| | 03:49 | Again, as I move these colors around, I
am just really moving one color or what
| | 03:53 | we refer to as my base color,
Illustrator is automatically going to identify the
| | 03:59 | other colors that are analogous to that color.
| | 04:02 | Now I could change the base color by
clicking on a different one and moving it,
| | 04:05 | but again, notice that they all kind
of move together, where Illustrator is
| | 04:09 | always going to give me these
analogous values of these five colors.
| | 04:13 | Now if you'd like, you could spend some
time just going to this list and seeing
| | 04:17 | exactly what all of these
different harmonies represent.
| | 04:20 | For example, if I choose Tetrad, I
actually see that I have one value here, and
| | 04:26 | I get other values some of the exact
opposite corners of the color wheel.
| | 04:29 | And as I said earlier, there is no
such thing as a good harmony or a bad
| | 04:33 | harmony, it's just some predefined
way of describing a relationship between
| | 04:37 | these different colors.
| | 04:39 | Now, I am able to work with these
harmonies here inside of Illustrator, because
| | 04:42 | I had this concept of a color wheel.
| | 04:44 | Right now, we are dealing with generic colors.
| | 04:47 | However, we are going to find out that
you can create your own custom harmonies,
| | 04:50 | or you can even have Illustrator make
suggestions to you based on the colors
| | 04:54 | that are going to choose.
| | 04:55 | What we get at the end of the day here
is an incredibly powerful feature set,
| | 05:00 | about how Illustrator can understand
and work with us when it comes to color.
| | 05:05 | And now that we have a better
understanding of how Illustrator internally can
| | 05:08 | think about these colors, for example,
working with different color models,
| | 05:12 | working with a color wheel in general,
and now working with harmonies, we will
| | 05:16 | find that not only is it going to be
easier to work with color, it will also be
| | 05:20 | a little bit of fun.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting inspiration from the Color Guide panel| 00:00 | So we know about this really
great web service called Kuler;
| | 00:04 | it's free and it's provided by Adobe,
and it allows us to derive inspiration
| | 00:08 | around the use of color.
| | 00:10 | However, what if I am inside of
Illustrator and I want to derive
| | 00:13 | inspiration around colors based on
the colors that I am actually using
| | 00:16 | inside of my illustration?
| | 00:18 | Let's close Kuler for a moment here.
| | 00:20 | In fact, the only reason why I showed
you Kuler to begin with is because the
| | 00:23 | technology that drives Kuler from the
back-end is something that actually comes
| | 00:28 | directly from Illustrator itself.
| | 00:30 | The same ability for Kuler to
generate color themes by choosing one color
| | 00:36 | already exists inside of Illustrator
using something called the Color Guide.
| | 00:41 | I can actually see the Color Guide right
here, but I can also access it by going
| | 00:45 | to the Window menu and choosing Color Guide.
| | 00:48 | For this movie, I am actually going to
drag it out onto the screen over here so
| | 00:52 | we can pay a little bit
more closer attention to it.
| | 00:54 | The job of the Color Guide panel is to
make suggestions based on color harmonies.
| | 00:59 | For example, if I choose any color now
in my Swatches panel, each time that I
| | 01:04 | click on a swatch, we could
think of that as my base color.
| | 01:07 | Again, similar to what we saw inside of
Kuler, and the Color Guide will now make
| | 01:12 | recommendations of other colors that
work well along with the color that I am
| | 01:17 | choosing or my base color.
| | 01:19 | Now, the way that you use the Color
Guide is really you should be choosing a
| | 01:22 | color harmony or a color rule first.
| | 01:25 | Remember, when we were using Kuler, we
had the ability to choose between six
| | 01:29 | different color rules.
| | 01:30 | Things like Analogous or Monochromatic,
but if you take a look over here at
| | 01:34 | the Color Guide, I am going to click on
this little triangle right here, I now
| | 01:38 | see that Illustrator offers 23 different
color rules or harmonies that I can work with.
| | 01:43 | So, for example, let's go
ahead and choose Monochromatic.
| | 01:46 | Now, as I choose other colors inside
my Swatches panel, Color Guide will now
| | 01:51 | recommend other
Monochromatic variations of that color.
| | 01:54 | If I choose a different color
rule or harmony, for example, Left
| | 01:58 | Complement, I'll see different
colors that are being suggested to me as I
| | 02:02 | change my base color.
| | 02:04 | If I like any of these
colors, I can click on them.
| | 02:06 | I can also use the Command key, or if
you are on Windows that would be the Ctrl
| | 02:10 | key, to select multiple swatches here
and instantly turn them into a group which
| | 02:16 | is added to my Swatches panel.
| | 02:18 | So if you are looking for color
inspiration directly here inside of Illustrator,
| | 02:22 | you don't have to go to Kuler at all;
| | 02:23 | you can actually use Illustrator's
Color Guide panel to find colors to use
| | 02:28 | in your illustrations.
| | 02:29 | There is a lot more to the Color
Guide itself, but in order to really take
| | 02:33 | advantage of all the power that it
offers we have to learn a little bit more
| | 02:36 | about what makes the Color Guide work,
and that's something that we're going to
| | 02:39 | cover in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Color DefinitionDeconstructing the Color panel| 00:00 | One of the first places that people look for
color inside of Illustrator is the COLOR panel.
| | 00:05 | So let's take a few
moments to take a look at it.
| | 00:07 | I am going to create a new
document here inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:10 | I will actually use the Print profile,
which will set my Color model here to
| | 00:13 | CMYK and I will click OK.
| | 00:15 | And you will notice over here, by the
way, that I am using right now my own
| | 00:18 | customized workspace, where I have my
APPEARANCE panel here, and my LAYERS
| | 00:21 | panel, but just right now for the sake
of consistency, I want to make sure that
| | 00:24 | what you're seeing on your screen is
similar to what I am going to be seeing
| | 00:27 | here inside of the video.
| | 00:29 | So I'm going to change my workspace to the
Essentials workspace that comes with Illustrator.
| | 00:33 | I am just going to click on the white
arrows here to completely expand the doc
| | 00:37 | here, so I can see the panels inside of it.
| | 00:39 | Let's focus here on the COLOR panel itself.
| | 00:41 | There are a few things to note.
| | 00:42 | First of all, I have these sliders
here that allow me to mix different values
| | 00:46 | to get out a color.
| | 00:47 | We had spoken before about
something called Process colors inside of
| | 00:50 | Illustrator, and again, Process colors are
created by mixing various primary colors.
| | 00:55 | So here I have different sliders, which
allow me to assign different percentages
| | 00:58 | of CMYK, but I can also choose
between the other color models.
| | 01:02 | If I go to the flyout menu at the
COLOR panel, I can choose Grayscale or RGB,
| | 01:07 | HSB or Web Safe RGB.
| | 01:08 | Let's see what RGB looks like.
| | 01:10 | I can actually see now that I have three
sliders, one for red, one for green and
| | 01:13 | one for blue, but I can also go ahead
and choose colors just by moving my cursor
| | 01:17 | over this little ramp over here, this
color ramp, looks like a little rainbow.
| | 01:20 | And if I click on it or even if I
click and drag, I will see that Illustrator
| | 01:24 | will go ahead and choose a color from
that, so I can at least have a starting
| | 01:26 | point where I want to kind of work
with a color and try to see what I like.
| | 01:29 | Notice, by the way, that on the upper left-hand
corner over here I have these two icons.
| | 01:33 | These are my Fill and Stroke indicators.
| | 01:36 | At any time when I work inside of
Illustrator, I can be choosing a color from my
| | 01:39 | Fill or my Stroke attribute.
| | 01:41 | Whichever one is in focus right now
or whichever one is in the front now is
| | 01:45 | really what I'm dealing with
as far as choosing a color.
| | 01:47 | If I press the X Key on my keyboard I
can toggle the focus between my Fill and
| | 01:51 | my Stroke, you can see right now
I brought the focus to my Stroke.
| | 01:54 | The stroke now appears in front of
the Fill, so any color I now choose gets
| | 01:58 | applied to my Stroke attribute.
| | 02:00 | I can hit X again to bring the Fill
back, and I could also use the Shift+X
| | 02:03 | Key on my keyboard.
| | 02:04 | I am holding down Shift and X, and that
allows me to swap my Fill and my Stroke colors.
| | 02:09 | There is one other important keyboard
shortcut to know when we working with
| | 02:12 | color and that's the D Key, D for
Default, but that will always set your Fill
| | 02:16 | color to white and your Stroke color to black.
| | 02:18 | There is a shortcut for us for toggling
between the different color models, like
| | 02:22 | right now I am working with RGB, but
again, if I hold down my Shift Key and I
| | 02:25 | move my cursor over the color ramp
and I start clicking, each time that I
| | 02:28 | Shift+Click, it's going to toggle
between the different color models.
| | 02:31 | So I have right now Grayscale,
RGB, HSB, CMYK and Web Safe RGB.
| | 02:37 | Now to make things a little bit faster,
if I want to be able to specify colors,
| | 02:40 | for example, in CMYK, once I put my
focus into one of these values, I can add
| | 02:46 | values and I can tab between these, and
I could Shift+Tab to go backwards also.
| | 02:50 | But I want to switch here for a moment
to another color model, for example, RGB.
| | 02:54 | I am just switching now to RGB.
| | 02:55 | Let's Shift+Click a few times. I am now at RGB.
| | 02:58 | And remember that right now I
am inside of a CMYK document.
| | 03:01 | I am able to choose RGB colors though,
and that's because the panels inside of
| | 03:05 | Illustrator have the ability to support
multiple color models at once, but the
| | 03:10 | artboard itself can only
support one color model.
| | 03:12 | So I can choose an RGB color here, but
as soon as I apply to an object in my
| | 03:16 | artboard, Illustrator will convert
that color on the artboard to the
| | 03:20 | document's color space.
| | 03:21 | So, for example, if I were to
choose let's say this color right here.
| | 03:24 | Let's actually drag the blue sliders to
the right over here and in the minute we
| | 03:29 | will see why I am going to do that.
| | 03:30 | I am going to click and drag to draw a
rectangle here and the rectangle now is
| | 03:33 | filled with that color.
| | 03:34 | But this color that I am seeing right
here is actually not the RGB color, it's
| | 03:38 | the closest match in the CMYK color
gamut right now that is being converted
| | 03:43 | automatically inside of this document,
and again, that's because I can't have
| | 03:46 | RGB artwork sitting in a CMYK artboard.
| | 03:50 | So let's talk about this for a moment.
| | 03:51 | We have something called the Color Gamut.
| | 03:52 | The color gamut as we discussed is a
range of colors that are achievable within
| | 03:57 | a certain Color model.
| | 03:59 | RGB can achieve certain colors.
| | 04:01 | RGB has what we call a
larger color gamut than CMYK.
| | 04:05 | For example, a bright color is like
oranges and greens and blues and purples.
| | 04:09 | Those can be very difficult to achieve
inside of CMYK, but they can be easy to
| | 04:13 | achieve inside of RGB.
| | 04:15 | So let's take a look over here where the
COLOR panel is also giving me information on.
| | 04:19 | I can see that I have two icons here.
| | 04:21 | I have this little yellow warning icon,
and then I have like a three-dimensional
| | 04:24 | cube that appears over here.
| | 04:26 | When I am working inside of Illustrator,
anytime I see a yellow warning icon on
| | 04:30 | the COLOR panel, it means that that
color right now that I've chosen is outside
| | 04:34 | of the CMYK color gamut.
| | 04:36 | So that might explain why sometimes I
might see a color that looks very rich
| | 04:39 | inside the COLOR panel, but may be does
not match that here on the artboard, and
| | 04:43 | that's because what I'm seeing here is
the closest representation of that color.
| | 04:46 | In fact, if I were to now click on this
value right here, Illustrator would snap
| | 04:51 | that to the closest possible
value inside of the CMYK color gamut.
| | 04:54 | So now that warning went away.
| | 04:56 | Now I also have another
warning icon that appears over here.
| | 04:59 | Again, looks like a 3D cube.
| | 05:00 | Whenever I see a cube icon in the COLOR
panel, that means that the color that I
| | 05:04 | have right now chosen is not a Web Safe
Color, meaning, it doesn't fall within
| | 05:09 | those range of 216 specific colors with
an RGB that are determined as Web Safe
| | 05:14 | Colors that are consistent
across Mac and Windows platforms.
| | 05:18 | Now again, nowadays most people
really don't care too much about Web Safe
| | 05:21 | Colors, but this is an indicator that it
let's you know that the color right now
| | 05:25 | is not a Web Safe Color.
| | 05:26 | And again, if I were to click on the
cube right there, Illustrator would now
| | 05:29 | snap that color to the nearest Web Safe Color.
| | 05:33 | So again, at times you may see those
gamut warnings appear inside the COLOR
| | 05:36 | panel and if you choose, you can click
on those to at least get to the nearest
| | 05:40 | color that is within the range of
what Illustrator is trying to show you.
| | 05:43 | For example, if I wanted to make sure
that my color was inside the CMYK gamut or
| | 05:47 | within the Web Safe Color gamut.
| | 05:48 | I will be honest though, and I will tell
you that personally I really don't care
| | 05:52 | about these gamut warnings, usually
I am choosing a color from a book or
| | 05:55 | something that I know what the color
is supposed to be, so I don't need the
| | 05:58 | gamut warnings there,
because what colors are achievable.
| | 06:01 | On top of that if I'm doing Web design,
I very rarely stay within the Web Safe
| | 06:05 | Color palette anyway, because most
people have monitors that can achieve a
| | 06:08 | bigger range or a wider range of color.
| | 06:10 | So I certainly don't want to limit myself
to only working within that range of color.
| | 06:14 | However, I'll tell you that for the most
part, I don't use the COLOR panel at all.
| | 06:18 | That's because I define all my
colors using the SWATCHES panel.
| | 06:21 | In fact, you will see that if I create
a new swatch here, I actually see that I
| | 06:25 | can choose between my color
models and I get my sliders over here.
| | 06:28 | So I would actually prefer to create
swatches, than just create the colors itself.
| | 06:32 | You want to know why?
| | 06:33 | We will actually cover that in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with "phantom" colors| 00:01 | In the previous movie, we spoke about
using the Color panel to create colors.
| | 00:06 | Now I also shared with you that I
really don't like to use the Color panel to
| | 00:09 | create my colors, I prefer to use the
Swatches panel so that I can actually
| | 00:13 | create the swatches that are like saved colors.
| | 00:16 | So let me take a moment
to explain why I do that.
| | 00:19 | Inside of Illustrator, if I wanted,
for example, work with this document here
| | 00:22 | and I wanted to add some color, so
maybe I'll take let's say the inside part of
| | 00:26 | this little flower here,
this little circle here;
| | 00:28 | I want to fill that with a color I'm not
really sure yet which color, so I click
| | 00:31 | to let's say on the slider over here,
this little spectrum that I had down here,
| | 00:35 | and maybe I'll choose let's
say this color right here.
| | 00:37 | It happens to be that it has a
value of 60% Cyan and 100% Yellow.
| | 00:41 | So it looks really nice, I can now
click on let's say this shape right over
| | 00:44 | here, but notice that right now, I
don't actually have that color here anymore.
| | 00:48 | The reason why is because the Color
panel will always show me or display the
| | 00:53 | color that I currently
have selected on my artboard.
| | 00:56 | Right now, the fill for this object is white.
| | 00:59 | So as soon as I click on any other object,
Illustrator changes the focus of that
| | 01:03 | fill here in the COLOR panel to
represent the object that's currently selected.
| | 01:07 | So if I wanted to apply this same color
to these other areas also, I don't have
| | 01:11 | an easy way to do that.
| | 01:12 | What I can do is employ the Eyedropper tool,
so right now, with this shape selected;
| | 01:17 | I can choose the Eyedropper tool.
| | 01:19 | And the way the Eyedropper tool works
is that I can actually sample or point to
| | 01:22 | another shape and because this shape is
currently selected, by clicking on this
| | 01:26 | shape, I'm telling Illustrator take
the attributes whenever I click over here
| | 01:30 | and apply it to my selections.
| | 01:31 | So right now I want this shape to be filled
with this color, so now that gets filled green.
| | 01:36 | Then I can hold down my Command key,
which returns me to the last used Selection
| | 01:40 | tool inside of Illustrator.
| | 01:42 | I'm going to click on this shape
here and then eye-drop on that one.
| | 01:45 | And I can do the same thing for these
also, let's say this one, and then click
| | 01:49 | on the Eyedropper tool here as well. Great!
| | 01:51 | So I now have applied the color to
these shapes, so let's deselect them.
| | 01:54 | The problem though is that right
now if I go ahead now and I click on
| | 01:57 | another shape, let's say something
else for that matter, these colors right
| | 02:01 | now don't really exist in any way
inside of my Swatches panel, so I have no
| | 02:05 | easy way to reference them.
| | 02:07 | Many times when you're mixing colors,
I may let, for example, click on one of
| | 02:11 | these, and I may come kind of just make an
adjustment here, maybe you change it like 55% Cyan.
| | 02:15 | Just on this one;
| | 02:16 | my eye can't really pick up any visual
difference between this object and this
| | 02:21 | object that appears as if they had
the same color, but they really don't.
| | 02:25 | This one has a value of 55% Cyan
and this one is a value of 60% Cyan.
| | 02:31 | If I were a person who is now
responsible for taking a look at this file right
| | 02:35 | now and making sure that I printed
correctly and the color was fine, I would
| | 02:38 | actually now have inconsistent color.
| | 02:39 | I'd have some objects that really are
supposed to be filled with the same color,
| | 02:43 | but they had different values inside of them.
| | 02:45 | More importantly, if I want to
perform tasks, like, for example, I want to
| | 02:48 | change all of my colors, there's a
command inside of Illustrator that's called
| | 02:51 | Select same Fill Color.
| | 02:52 | So I can click this object, for example,
to select it, and then go over here
| | 02:56 | to this little Arrow, this icon here
in my Control panel, and I could say,
| | 02:59 | Select same Fill Color.
| | 03:01 | And when I do that, notice that this
object, this object, this one, and this one
| | 03:05 | all become selected, but this one here in
the middle is not selected. I may wonder why;
| | 03:09 | the answer is, because some of the values are
different, it's not the exact same fill color.
| | 03:14 | In other words, I happen to have right
now inside my documents these colors that
| | 03:17 | exist, but I have no easy
way to reference that color.
| | 03:21 | More importantly, I have no
way to manage that color as well.
| | 03:25 | In fact, I like to refer to these
colors as Phantom colors, meaning they don't
| | 03:30 | really exist anywhere inside of your file,
they happen to be applied to artwork.
| | 03:34 | But you have no way to track or control
those colors through the SWATCHES panel
| | 03:38 | or really through any other
means inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:41 | So while the COLOR panel maybe a really
easy way for you to actually define some
| | 03:44 | color and get it on to your artboard
very quickly, but you don't really have any
| | 03:47 | way to control that color afterwards.
| | 03:50 | Now what we're going to learn
throughout this entire title is that we do have
| | 03:53 | ways to work with these phantom colors.
| | 03:55 | In fact, that's one of the most
beautiful things about working with this new
| | 03:58 | color engine that Adobe added in CS3.
| | 04:01 | However, I do think it's a bad habit
to continuously work with adding this
| | 04:05 | phantom colors inside of Illustrator,
because you may run yourself into problems
| | 04:08 | little bit later on.
| | 04:10 | Let's take a step back for a moment
here and kind of understand why are there
| | 04:13 | these phantom colors
inside of Illustrator at all?
| | 04:16 | Why does Illustrator allow us to create
these phantom colors that can eventually
| | 04:20 | cause problems later on in our workflow?
| | 04:22 | The answer is, when you're
working inside of Illustrator and you're
| | 04:25 | experimenting with color, you're
choosing which colors I want to use, there
| | 04:29 | really is nothing that's better
than working with the COLOR panel.
| | 04:31 | It allows you to quickly just adjust sliders
and kind of dream up colors as you're working.
| | 04:37 | It's a very easy way for you as
you're working to quickly generate or
| | 04:40 | experiment with color.
| | 04:42 | However, once you know the color that
you want to use, it's obviously going to
| | 04:45 | be better to create and
define a swatch for that color.
| | 04:49 | So if you want to take this overall
approach to color workflow inside of
| | 04:52 | Illustrator, it's okay to generate these
phantom colors as you're experimenting.
| | 04:57 | But once you actually start to apply
those colors in a meaningful way to
| | 05:00 | artwork, that's the time to actually
take these phantom colors and convert
| | 05:04 | them into swatches.
| | 05:06 | In fact, for the remainder of this
chapter, we're going to focus specifically
| | 05:10 | on how to define swatches and
understand the different kinds of swatches that
| | 05:14 | Illustrator offers.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Defining and using process colors| 00:00 | So we know that in Illustrator, I can
use the COLOR panel, which I can find
| | 00:04 | right over here to mix any kind of
color that I want to create and then use
| | 00:09 | those colors to actually apply the
color to artwork inside of my document.
| | 00:13 | But we also know that if these
colors are not saved as swatches, meaning,
| | 00:18 | they're just these phantom colors that
live inside my document, there's no easy
| | 00:22 | way for me to apply that color to a
new artwork that I might want to create.
| | 00:26 | Now of course, if I want a color
that I want to continually access as I'm
| | 00:30 | working, I probably want to
save that color as a swatch.
| | 00:34 | And the most simple kind of swatch that
you can create inside of Illustrator is
| | 00:39 | something called a process color swatch.
| | 00:42 | Now remember, inside of Illustrator the
term process doesn't mean CMYK printing,
| | 00:48 | which a lot of people
refer to as process colors.
| | 00:51 | Process simply means that the color
itself that's used inside of that swatch
| | 00:55 | is made up of a mixture of some kind of
primary colors, be it RGB or CMYK, for example.
| | 01:00 | So let's see how we can create these
process swatches inside of Illustrator so
| | 01:04 | that we can easily apply that color
throughout our workings in a design.
| | 01:09 | Now normally when you create a new
document inside of Illustrator, that document
| | 01:13 | already has some swatches inside of it,
but in this case over here in this file
| | 01:16 | that I'm working on, I actually
have cleared out all of my swatches.
| | 01:19 | So I don't have anything in here,
other than the None attribute and then
| | 01:23 | something called Registration, and this is
something that is specific only to printing.
| | 01:27 | Registration means that that object
contains 100% of all the different plates
| | 01:32 | inside of your file, and that
includes C, M, Y, K, plus any potential spot
| | 01:36 | colors that you might have in your new document.
| | 01:38 | As an example, if you're creating trim
marks or crop marks, those usually get
| | 01:42 | assigned a registration color, so that they
appear on every plate inside of your separation.
| | 01:48 | But for now, these are the only two
swatches that exist in my document and
| | 01:52 | by default, Illustrator has these inside
of every document and they can't be deleted.
| | 01:57 | But let's go ahead now and
actually create a new swatch.
| | 01:59 | Now first of all what we can do is we
can actually experiment with the COLOR
| | 02:03 | panel to find what kind of
color we might want to create.
| | 02:06 | For example, this document right now is
CMYK and I'm working with CMYK sliders
| | 02:10 | in my Color panel, so I can even just
click on the color ramp here and choose
| | 02:14 | any color, and let's say at
least get started in one direction.
| | 02:18 | Let's say I know I want some kind
of a greenish kind of color here.
| | 02:20 | So now I see I have about 36% Cyan and
100% Yellow, let's kind of round this off
| | 02:26 | and make it around 40% Cyan.
| | 02:28 | So I have 40% Cyan, 100% Yellow, and
I now want to save this as a swatch.
| | 02:33 | What I can do is I can now
come down to my Swatches panel.
| | 02:36 | Since this right now is in focus, I
can come down to my Swatches panel and
| | 02:40 | simply click on the button
here to create a new swatch.
| | 02:43 | Notice when I do so the values that
were assigned inside the Color panel now
| | 02:47 | appear inside of this New Swatch dialog
box, so I have 40% Cyan and 100% Yellow.
| | 02:53 | Now by default, Adobe names
swatches based on their actual breakdown.
| | 02:59 | So the name of the swatch is C=40, M=0,
Y=100, and K=0.
| | 03:05 | If I wanted to override it and I wanted
to call this one lime green or something
| | 03:09 | like that, for example, I can
just change the name right here.
| | 03:12 | But for now I'm going to leave
this default name here for the swatch.
| | 03:16 | And I'll simply click the OK button and that
creates a swatch now inside my Swatches panel.
| | 03:21 | Now there maybe times when you already
know the breakdown for the color that
| | 03:24 | you want to create.
| | 03:25 | In those examples, all you need to do
is just simply come to tour Swatches
| | 03:28 | panel, say create a new swatch, and
then I can hit the Tab key on my keyboard
| | 03:33 | to just simply come down right here to the
CMYK sliders and type in the values that I want.
| | 03:39 | For example, maybe I want some kind of
an orange color, so I'll use a Cyan level
| | 03:44 | of 0 and I'll use like Magenta 50,
and I'll leave a 100 set to Yellow.
| | 03:49 | And now I click OK and now I've created
yet another swatch inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:53 | So now I have two swatches, and again,
these are called process swatches, again,
| | 03:58 | because they're made up of
different values of primary colors.
| | 04:02 | Now if I want to start coloring my
artwork, what I can do is I can simply select
| | 04:06 | any object and then click on a
color to fill it with that color.
| | 04:10 | And I can let's say click on this
object here and click on this swatch, and
| | 04:13 | that's how I could start coloring
in the artwork inside of my document.
| | 04:17 | Now you can add as many swatches as
you need for colors inside any document.
| | 04:21 | I'm actually going to click on a few
other objects here, I'm going to hold
| | 04:24 | down my Shift key to select multiple objects,
and maybe I'll apply some more colors here.
| | 04:29 | Let me click on these little middle areas
and make that orange over here. Very nice!
| | 04:34 | So now I have these colors that I've not
only created swatches for, but I've now
| | 04:37 | applied those colors to my document itself.
| | 04:41 | Here is the thing to note about swatches though.
| | 04:44 | If I decide now that I want to change
some of these colors, for example, that
| | 04:48 | middle area of orange right now,
it doesn't really work for me.
| | 04:50 | I want that to be more
of a yellow kind of color.
| | 04:52 | I can double-click on my orange swatch
right here and I can actually change the
| | 04:57 | values of the colors in that swatch.
| | 04:58 | For example, I can remove all the magenta,
now it's just filled with 100% Yellow.
| | 05:02 | If I click OK, you can notice
right now that the artwork inside of my
| | 05:06 | document does not update.
| | 05:08 | And that's because the swatches that
you create inside of Illustrator, what we
| | 05:11 | call these process swatches, are a way
for you to apply color to a document, but
| | 05:16 | they're not necessarily a way that you
can actually manage or adjust the colors
| | 05:20 | that already you have been
applied to your document itself.
| | 05:24 | So if you want to think about this in
analog terms, swatches that you create
| | 05:28 | inside of Illustrator are
like a painter's palette.
| | 05:31 | You actually have this paint that you
can actually apply to your canvas, but
| | 05:35 | just because you want to mix that
color and maybe mix up some paints that are
| | 05:38 | on your palette, it doesn't make the paint
that's already been applied to your canvas change.
| | 05:43 | So it's an easy way for you to apply
color to your document, but not necessarily
| | 05:48 | a way for you to manage color in your document.
| | 05:50 | Still, creating process swatches
inside of your document can be very helpful
| | 05:55 | because it allows you to easily apply
color to your document and it can also
| | 05:59 | apply color to other
areas inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:01 | For example, adding color stops to a gradient.
| | 06:04 | So what you do if you actually want to
be able to manage and just color in a
| | 06:08 | more efficient manner?
| | 06:09 | Well, that's something we'll discuss in
the next movie when we cover something
| | 06:12 | called Global Process Colors.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Defining and using global process colors| 00:00 | We've already established that in
Illustrator I can create SWATCHES that allow
| | 00:05 | me to easily apply color to my document.
| | 00:08 | However, if we want to be able to manage that
color, the swatches really don't help us out.
| | 00:13 | In other words, right now in this
document called global.ai, I have several
| | 00:18 | flowers, they're colored green and
blue, but the centers of these are all
| | 00:22 | filled with yellow.
| | 00:23 | And they were filled with yellow
using this swatch right over here.
| | 00:26 | Now if I decide that I want to change
the shade of that yellow, maybe I want to
| | 00:30 | add a little bit of black into it or
maybe I want to add a little bit magenta
| | 00:33 | into it to kind of make it
little bit more closer to orange.
| | 00:37 | So if I now go ahead and I double-click
on the swatch itself, and I add in
| | 00:42 | some magenta, let me do something
drastic here, and maybe make it 50% Magenta,
| | 00:45 | and then I'll click OK.
| | 00:47 | Notice that right now my swatch has
turned orange, and if I double-click, I
| | 00:50 | can see that it has a value here of orange,
even though, by the way, the name is still Yellow.
| | 00:55 | But if you look at my document itself,
the document currently has that yellow
| | 00:59 | color that was originally applied.
| | 01:01 | So in essence, what I've kind of done
here is I've created this phantom color in
| | 01:05 | my document, because I changed the
swatch, there's no longer a swatch for this
| | 01:09 | color, but this color does exist
inside of my document right now.
| | 01:13 | So let's say I decide that I want to
make a change to that yellow, I want that
| | 01:16 | yellow to be a little bit different,
I want it to become that orange.
| | 01:19 | So what I would need to do is first
change my swatch, now I'd need to select all
| | 01:23 | my colors, so I'd click on maybe one of these.
| | 01:25 | And then I would choose from this little
setting right here in my Control panel,
| | 01:29 | to select all objects that have the
same fill color, and now all those yellow
| | 01:32 | objects will become selected.
| | 01:33 | And then I can reapply that swatch and
make it orange, but that's a lot of extra
| | 01:37 | steps, it's totally unnecessary.
| | 01:40 | So I'm going to press Undo, I want to
go back to my shapes before I change a
| | 01:43 | color, and I'm actually going to press
undo another time, come back maybe two or
| | 01:47 | three times right now, so my swatch is
now back to its original yellow color.
| | 01:52 | Let's reapply some of the
colors now inside of this document.
| | 01:55 | I'm going to double-click on the
Yellow Swatch right now and notice over here
| | 02:00 | that the slider for Yellow is set to
100, but if I go over here to the top,
| | 02:03 | there's a setting here called Global.
| | 02:05 | This little check box over here which
right now is not checked, Illustrator does
| | 02:09 | not create global swatches by default;
| | 02:11 | it creates what we call
regular process swatches.
| | 02:14 | But if I check this box right over here,
what I'm telling Illustrator to do is
| | 02:18 | to create something
called a global process swatch.
| | 02:21 | What a global process swatch basically
is, is something called a managed color.
| | 02:26 | In other words, it's going to be
a way for me to have some kind of
| | 02:30 | established relationship between my swatch and
the artwork that was colored with that swatch.
| | 02:36 | So let's see exactly what that means.
| | 02:38 | With the Global check box turned on,
I'm going to click OK, and the first thing
| | 02:41 | to notice over here is if you look in my
Swatches panel, the Yellow swatch has a
| | 02:45 | little white triangle in the
lower right-hand corner of it.
| | 02:48 | Whenever you see a swatch inside of
Illustrator that has that white triangle as
| | 02:52 | a part of the swatch itself;
| | 02:54 | that means that that swatch is a global
process swatch, not just a regular swatch.
| | 03:00 | And now what I'm going to do is I'm
going to take this yellow circle, I'm
| | 03:03 | going to choose now select the same
Fill Color, so now all my yellow circles
| | 03:07 | become selected, and I'm now going to color
them with this yellow global process swatch.
| | 03:13 | Now one thing to note, by the way,
whenever you have objects that are filled
| | 03:16 | with a global swatch, you no longer
have the CMYK sliders for that swatch,
| | 03:20 | but you actually have a Tint slider, meaning,
I can specify a Tint value of that color.
| | 03:25 | This can actually be very, very
helpful when you want to use varying tints or
| | 03:30 | percentages of mixed colors.
| | 03:33 | But I'm going to deselect my artwork right now.
| | 03:35 | All we've done so far is we've taken
our colors, or in this case, we've taken
| | 03:39 | our objects in my document and we've
applied a global process color to that.
| | 03:45 | Now let's see what happens
when I want to modify that swatch.
| | 03:48 | Let's say we decide right now that
the yellow is too bright, we want to add
| | 03:51 | some magenta to it.
| | 03:53 | So I'm going to come over here to my
SWATCHES panel, I'm not going to select any
| | 03:56 | artwork in my document.
| | 03:57 | In fact, just to make this a little
bit easier to see, I'm going to move my
| | 04:00 | document a little bit over here to the
left, because now when I double-click on
| | 04:04 | the swatch, the dialog box will come up
over here and I'm going to move it over
| | 04:07 | to the side and I'm going to
check the Preview check box.
| | 04:10 | That's going to allow me to now see how
this color is going to be changed in the
| | 04:14 | document before I even commit to
that color inside of my swatch.
| | 04:18 | Now we know that this swatch right now
is using a value of 100% Yellow and I
| | 04:24 | want to add some magenta.
| | 04:25 | Because this is a global process swatch,
and because there's now a relationship
| | 04:30 | between the swatch and the artwork in
my document that was colored with that
| | 04:34 | swatch, as I make a change to the
Magenta, for example, I change its value to
| | 04:38 | 50% and I'll hit the Tab key to accept
that and move to the next field, watch
| | 04:43 | what happens to the
yellow circles in my document.
| | 04:46 | They now actually change even
though they're not selected.
| | 04:49 | That's because I'm actually making a
change to the swatch, and making a change
| | 04:54 | to the swatch, because it's global,
also changes all artwork in my document
| | 04:59 | that uses that color.
| | 05:01 | So again, this is a way for me to now
work in more of a managed workflow where I
| | 05:05 | can make changes to one location,
meaning my swatch, and anywhere where that
| | 05:10 | color is used inside of my
artwork, it simply updates in place.
| | 05:14 | So if I click OK now to accept this,
and, by the way, I'm going to change the
| | 05:17 | name of the swatch to Orange, because Yellow
doesn't make sense any more, and I click OK.
| | 05:21 | Now what I've done is I've changed my
swatch, but all artwork in my document
| | 05:26 | also changes along with that swatch.
| | 05:28 | The only reason why that happens
is because I created a global color.
| | 05:32 | It's important to realize that the
color itself in my document will update, no
| | 05:37 | matter where or how that color is being used.
| | 05:39 | For example, if I have that color used
in strokes and in fills, they'll update
| | 05:44 | in both of those places at once.
| | 05:46 | If I had that color used inside of a
Gradient or inside of a Pattern, inside of
| | 05:50 | a Symbol, for example, just modifying
my swatch, because it's global, also
| | 05:56 | updates the colors anywhere
else inside of my document.
| | 05:59 | Now this sounds actually pretty cool,
because it allows you to make changes to
| | 06:03 | your color very easily.
| | 06:05 | So why does Illustrator have this
concept of regular process swatches at all?
| | 06:09 | Why aren't all my swatches global?
| | 06:11 | In fact, if you look at other Adobe
applications, for example, Adobe InDesign,
| | 06:16 | swatches by default are
always global inside of InDesign.
| | 06:19 | However, in Illustrator, this is an
additional option that we have to kind of
| | 06:23 | choose in order to get this behavior.
| | 06:25 | So why do we have process
swatches and global process swatches?
| | 06:29 | The answer is sometimes you actually
want colors to only be changed in one
| | 06:34 | location, not across your entire document.
| | 06:36 | For example, if I'm kind of working with
three or four different concepts inside
| | 06:40 | of a single document, I may want to
make changes to one of those concepts
| | 06:44 | without affecting any others.
| | 06:45 | If I'm using global colors, making a
change to one of those areas could change
| | 06:50 | everything across my document.
| | 06:52 | So depending on the need of what
you're working with, you may want to have
| | 06:55 | regular swatches, or you may
want to have global swatches.
| | 07:00 | In general, my advice is that if
you're kind of in an experimentation phase,
| | 07:03 | you're just kind of working inside of
a piece of artwork and you're trying to
| | 07:07 | derive some inspiration and kind of
messing around with things, working with
| | 07:10 | regular process swatches
is probably the way to go.
| | 07:13 | That way you can easily make changes
and not worry about colors updating
| | 07:16 | throughout your entire document.
| | 07:18 | However, if you already have an
established palette of colors, maybe, for
| | 07:21 | example, corporate colors, or you've
already chosen certain colors to use on
| | 07:25 | this project, then working with the
global process colors probably makes more
| | 07:29 | sense, because then if you need to make
changes later on in your workflow, you
| | 07:33 | can do so consistently
across your entire document.
| | 07:37 | So now we know that we have this
concept of something called process swatches
| | 07:41 | and global process swatches.
| | 07:43 | There's actually one kind of swatch
inside of Illustrator and that's something
| | 07:46 | which we'll cover in the next
movie working with spot color swatches.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Defining and using spot colors| 00:00 | Until now, we've spoken about
colors that are called process colors.
| | 00:04 | Again, these are colors that when we
print color separations out of Illustrator,
| | 00:09 | get separated onto individual plates.
| | 00:12 | These plates are usually
primary colors, for example, CMYK.
| | 00:15 | However, there maybe times when your
creating some kind of artwork and you
| | 00:19 | need to generate customized plates,
ones that aren't necessarily Cyan,
| | 00:23 | Magenta, Yellow, or Black, but it can
either be a Pantone color, or it can be
| | 00:28 | a specific process.
| | 00:29 | For example, we have
something called varnishing;
| | 00:33 | that's where a printer can actually
coat a certain paper with a clear coating
| | 00:38 | that makes parts of the paper
look glossy or matte, for example.
| | 00:43 | So we need to be able to tell our printer
exactly where we want this varnish to be applied.
| | 00:48 | There are times when we'll have an
overall varnish where the printer will just
| | 00:51 | paint the entire page with this clear solution.
| | 00:54 | However, there are times when we want to
create something called a spot varnish.
| | 00:58 | That means we only want certain
parts of the page to be glossy.
| | 01:00 | Let's actually see how we might build
that here inside of Illustrator using
| | 01:04 | something called the spot color.
| | 01:06 | Again, we're creating a custom plate of a
color that we want to create on our own.
| | 01:11 | In this illustration here I have
several flowers and the centers of all the
| | 01:14 | flowers are printing yellow.
| | 01:16 | I may want to create an effect where I
want a spot gloss varnish to appear only
| | 01:21 | wherever the yellow color is used.
| | 01:23 | For example, I only want there to be a
glossy center to each of these flowers.
| | 01:27 | So the first thing that I'm going to do
is I'm going to create a spot color that
| | 01:32 | I'll use to help the printer
understand where I want this varnish to go.
| | 01:36 | So I'll come over to the SWATCHES
panel here and I'll choose to create a new
| | 01:40 | swatch by clicking the new swatch button.
| | 01:42 | Now I'm going to the swatch a name and
I'm going to call this one GLOSS VARNISH.
| | 01:46 | And it's important to realize that
the name that I'm giving this spot color
| | 01:50 | is going to the name of the plate that will
come out when I actually print separations.
| | 01:54 | Again, this will just help the printer
understand what my intent is for this
| | 01:58 | particular color plate.
| | 01:59 | Next, where it says Color Type, I'm going
to change it from Process to Spot Color.
| | 02:04 | Notice, by the way, that Global is
automatically checked and grayed out, and
| | 02:08 | that's because by definition, a spot
color is always going to be a global color.
| | 02:13 | Now we'll actually talk about what
color we're going to use to define this.
| | 02:16 | Now it's important to realize that
whatever mixture of colors that I use
| | 02:20 | right now is purely going to be used
for simulation purposes here inside of
| | 02:24 | Illustrator, or, for example, when I
print this out as a proof on my own printer.
| | 02:28 | But when I create separations, the
color that I'm going to create right now
| | 02:32 | called GLOSS VARNISH is going to
be a completely separate plate.
| | 02:35 | So it really doesn't make a difference
what values of CMYK, for example, here
| | 02:39 | that I use for this color.
| | 02:41 | For that reason when I know I want to
create a spot color that is going to be
| | 02:45 | completely different;
| | 02:46 | in this case, it's simply a gloss varnish,
there isn't even any color involved at all.
| | 02:50 | However, when I'm working inside of
Illustrator, want to find an easy way to
| | 02:54 | quickly identify where I've applied this color.
| | 02:57 | So what I like to do is I like to
actually generate a proofing color of a color
| | 03:01 | that I know for sure I'm not going to
be using anywhere else in my design.
| | 03:05 | So many times I'll
actually use a value of 100% Cyan;
| | 03:09 | it's very rare in a regular design
that I'll use 100% Cyan in my design work.
| | 03:14 | I may use yellow, for example, or their
mixtures, so I just want to create again
| | 03:17 | a color that I can quickly identify.
| | 03:19 | Oh, I know, in my brain wherever I see
this 100% Cyan, I know that's probably
| | 03:24 | going to be attributed to
this GLOSS VARNISH plate.
| | 03:27 | So I'm going to click OK, so I now
created a spot color and let's take a closer
| | 03:30 | look at what this looks
like inside the SWATCHES panel.
| | 03:33 | Remember that when we created global
colors, global process colors have a little
| | 03:37 | white triangle that appears in the
lower right-hand corner of the swatch.
| | 03:41 | However, with the spot color, we'll
actually see a white triangle, but with a
| | 03:45 | little black dot inside of it.
| | 03:47 | Again, that identifies that
swatch as being a spot color swatch.
| | 03:51 | You'll also notice that the name of
that swatch will appear inside the
| | 03:55 | Color panel whenever that swatch is
selected or whenever you're using it
| | 03:58 | inside of your document.
| | 04:00 | So now let's see how I might
apply the spot color to my document.
| | 04:03 | I'm going to start by clicking on just
one of these yellow circles right here,
| | 04:07 | and then I'll go up to this little
icon right here in my Control panel and
| | 04:10 | choose to select the same
objects that have the same fill color.
| | 04:13 | So now all of my yellow
objects now are selected.
| | 04:16 | Let's go down to my Layers panel over
here, because what I want to do is I want
| | 04:19 | to create now a new layer inside of my document.
| | 04:22 | So I'm going to choose to create a new
layer here, I'm actually going to rename
| | 04:26 | layer 2 to be my Varnish.
| | 04:28 | Now the reason why I'm doing this is
because I'm going to be creating a separate
| | 04:32 | set of objects that are going
to have the spot color applied.
| | 04:35 | However, when I'm working at least
inside of Illustrator and when I want to
| | 04:39 | make composite proofs out of Illustrator, I
don't actually want to see the varnish objects.
| | 04:43 | This is something that I'm using purely to
show my printer where I want the varnish to go.
| | 04:48 | But as I'm designing and as I'm
creating proofs for my client, I really
| | 04:51 | don't want to see it.
| | 04:52 | So by putting all my varnish elements on
a separate layer, I have the ability to
| | 04:56 | just simply hide that layer when I
don't want to see that information.
| | 04:59 | Now I'll go to the Edit menu here and
I'll choose to Copy these yellow circles.
| | 05:04 | Next, I'm going to click on the word
Varnish over here inside my Layers panel
| | 05:08 | and you can see that right now a
little black triangle appears in the upper
| | 05:11 | right corner of the Varnish layer.
| | 05:13 | That identifies this right now as
the active layer, meaning, whatever I
| | 05:17 | actually create artwork right now,
it's going to be creating that artwork on
| | 05:20 | this Varnish layer.
| | 05:21 | So what I'm going to do now is go
back to the Edit menu and I'm going to
| | 05:24 | choose Paste in Place.
| | 05:26 | So now if I hide layer 1 which has
all my artwork on it, you can see right
| | 05:30 | now I've basically created a layer, a
Varnish layer that has just these objects on it.
| | 05:35 | Now since these objects are still
selected, I can go over here to the Fill and
| | 05:40 | Stroke Settings here inside of my
Control panel and I can change the Fill
| | 05:43 | Color here to this GLOSS VARNISH spot color,
and I'll do the same thing for the Stroke.
| | 05:49 | So now what I've done is I've simply
applied the spot color, this one called
| | 05:53 | GLOSS VARNISH to these circles right here.
| | 05:56 | Now I need to do one other thing,
because the way that separations are
| | 05:59 | created is colors that appear stack on
top of other colors will always knock
| | 06:04 | out the colors beneath it.
| | 06:05 | So I need these objects to be set to
Overprint, so I'm going to go to the
| | 06:09 | Window menu here, I'm going to choose
to open up my Attributes panel, and I'll
| | 06:13 | simply check these two boxes to Overprint a
Fill and Overprint a Stroke of this artwork.
| | 06:18 | Now if you're not familiar with the
Overprint function inside of Illustrator, I
| | 06:23 | suggest you take a look at another
movie that I have here at the lynda.com
| | 06:26 | Online Training Library.
| | 06:27 | It's called Illustrator Insider Training:
| | 06:30 | Seeing Through Transparency.
| | 06:31 | In that title, I give a thorough
understanding of what knockouts and overprints
| | 06:36 | are, and that should help you
understand why I've applied these settings here.
| | 06:40 | Now if I go back to layer 1 and I turn
this layer on, so now that it's visible,
| | 06:44 | I could turn off the Varnish layer
and I could see my regular artwork.
| | 06:47 | However, when I'm ready to print this
and generate final separations, I would
| | 06:51 | turn on the Varnish layer and now what
would happen is I would get five plates
| | 06:56 | actually separated out of my artwork.
| | 06:58 | I would get the CMYK plates, which is
what all the artwork is actually used for,
| | 07:03 | but then I would get a fifth
plate which is named GLOSS VARNISH.
| | 07:06 | And this would allow the printer to
actually print this correctly so that just
| | 07:10 | the centers of all these flowers
would print with a glossy center.
| | 07:14 | Now in this example here, I use the
spot color for a specific purpose.
| | 07:18 | However, there are many other reasons
when you might want you spot colors.
| | 07:22 | For example, if you're an apparel
designer and you're designing a T-shirt with
| | 07:26 | some artwork on the front of it, that
art work might be printed on the T-shirt
| | 07:30 | using various screens.
| | 07:31 | Each of those screens need to be
separated into a different color, so you
| | 07:35 | might create separate spot colors for each of
the colors that you want to use on that T-shirt.
| | 07:41 | If you take a look at the bottom of a
check that you get from your bank, there
| | 07:45 | are sometimes these account
numbers that appear on the bottom.
| | 07:48 | These numbers are actually printed
with a special ink that has magnetic
| | 07:51 | properties inside of it that allows
computers to actually scan and read those
| | 07:56 | numbers directly from the check.
| | 07:58 | Again, those aren't regular process
colors, meaning they aren't values of CMYK,
| | 08:02 | they are a custom mix of colors that
the printer puts on the press at the time
| | 08:07 | they print that document.
| | 08:08 | So again, if you're creating that kind
of artwork, you would want to specify a
| | 08:12 | spot color for those kinds of elements.
| | 08:15 | However, from a design perspective, the
most common use of spot colors is when
| | 08:20 | a designer wants to specify a very
specific color and they want the printer to
| | 08:24 | match that exact color, so they create or
define something called a Pantone color.
| | 08:29 | This is something called a Library Color,
and we'll go into detail about how to
| | 08:33 | access and use Pantone colors in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Accessing color libraries| 00:00 | So we know that inside of
Illustrator we have two ways to define colors.
| | 00:04 | We can have a color that's called a
process color, meaning that it's made up of
| | 00:07 | a mixture of primary colors, and then
we also have something called the spot
| | 00:11 | color which is a customized color.
| | 00:13 | Now if I actually want to create some artwork
and I want to print that on a printing press.
| | 00:18 | If I choose a process color that means
that my printer needs to use all of the
| | 00:23 | primary colors in order to generate that color.
| | 00:25 | So, for example, if I am using various
percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and
| | 00:30 | black ink that means my printer needs
to have four colors on their press in
| | 00:35 | order to create the color
that I'm trying to achieve.
| | 00:37 | However, if I create just a custom
color, I could dial in the specific color
| | 00:42 | that I want and I can save some money by
having the printer only print just that one color.
| | 00:47 | So instead of paying for four inks, I would
just pay for the one ink that I am looking for.
| | 00:52 | So let's say, for example,
you have a business card.
| | 00:54 | You want the background of
your business card to be red.
| | 00:57 | You don't want to spend money on
printing cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks.
| | 01:01 | So you want to just tell the printer,
hey, just print the back of my business
| | 01:05 | card using a red color.
| | 01:07 | Now, of course, color itself is subjective.
| | 01:10 | What I might think is one shade of red,
a printer might think of something else,
| | 01:14 | and there are so many
different shades and variations of red.
| | 01:17 | So how do I find some way to tell my
printer exactly what kind of red I want
| | 01:22 | them to use when he prints my documents?
| | 01:25 | To solve this problem there are
some companies out there that create
| | 01:28 | defined libraries of color.
| | 01:30 | They published these libraries and the
designer could then choose a specific
| | 01:34 | number out of a book and tell the
printer not to print it in red, but to print
| | 01:38 | it using a certain number.
| | 01:40 | For example, Pantone is such a library.
| | 01:43 | So a designer could tell a printer,
print this one card using Pantone 185,
| | 01:49 | which is a red color.
| | 01:50 | Now these color books can be quite expensive.
| | 01:52 | They're still very useful to a designer.
| | 01:54 | However, when defining these colors to
actually apply them to your design inside
| | 01:58 | of Illustrator, we don't actually
have to go to the books themselves.
| | 02:02 | We can actually pull up those colors
here what we call library colors, directly
| | 02:07 | here inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:08 | In fact, a more specific term for
these are called book colors, and that's
| | 02:13 | because these colors are found in
color books that are published by these
| | 02:17 | companies such as Pantone.
| | 02:19 | The way to find them inside of
Illustrator is to go to your SWATCHES panel, take
| | 02:23 | a look up here in the lower left-hand
corner, there's a button here that is
| | 02:26 | called Swatch Libraries menu, and if
I click on that I can actually scroll
| | 02:30 | through different color
libraries that Illustrator ships with.
| | 02:34 | If I go over here to Color Books,
these are companies that publish these
| | 02:39 | different types of colors that belong
into these libraries that both designers
| | 02:43 | and printers can use.
| | 02:44 | Now across the world there are
different companies that provide these books.
| | 02:49 | In the U.S. and in Europe Pantone is
used a lot, but you will also find that,
| | 02:53 | for example, in Japan,
there are companies called Toyo.
| | 02:56 | There are also things
called the HKS, for example.
| | 02:58 | I am going to focus on the
use here on Pantone colors.
| | 03:02 | Now Pantone publishes
different types of libraries.
| | 03:05 | They have colors that are kind of
belonging to specific needs or design uses.
| | 03:11 | For example, they have an
entire library of metallic colors.
| | 03:14 | These are colors that have little bits
of metal that are actually mixed into the
| | 03:18 | ink itself to give that ink some kind
of a sheen when it gets printed on paper.
| | 03:23 | Now the most common library found in
Pantone is something called Pantone solid colors.
| | 03:28 | These are colors that are used by
all kinds of designers and Pantone
| | 03:32 | publishes different versions of the solid colors,
something called coated or matte or uncoated.
| | 03:38 | But in reality the numbers
themselves are the same across all these
| | 03:41 | different libraries.
| | 03:42 | You would just choose coated, matte or
uncoated based on the type of paper that
| | 03:47 | you're actually going to be printing on.
| | 03:48 | I'll be honest with you though, it really
doesn't make a difference which version you.
| | 03:52 | So I just kind of make consistent and
I always just use Pantone solid coated
| | 03:57 | even if you're going to be printing on
a matte or uncoated paper stock, it's
| | 04:00 | still going to be okay for you to
choose a color from this library.
| | 04:03 | So by choosing this option here,
Pantone solid coated I am now going to bring
| | 04:07 | up now a separate panel here that
contains all of the Pantone library colors
| | 04:13 | inside of the solid coated library and I'm now
able to move any of these colors into my document.
| | 04:18 | So let's first understand exactly this
concept of a library inside of Illustrator.
| | 04:22 | I am obviously planning on using a few
of these Pantone colors in my document,
| | 04:26 | but I certainly don't need all of them.
| | 04:28 | So I don't want to weigh down my
document by bringing in every single Pantone
| | 04:32 | color from this library, and even
more so, I don't want there to be any
| | 04:36 | confusion inside of my document,
because I want people to quickly understand
| | 04:40 | what colors are being used in this document.
| | 04:42 | I don't want to have tons of swatches in
my document that I'm not planning on using.
| | 04:46 | Now the majority of times that I'm
using Pantone colors, I either already know
| | 04:51 | what number I want to actually access,
or I am probably choosing the colors
| | 04:55 | itself from one of Pantone's books.
| | 04:57 | So it's rare that I am going to choose
the Pantone color here based on all of
| | 05:01 | the colors that I see here.
| | 05:02 | In theory, I can make this window a
lot larger and see a lot of these colors
| | 05:06 | here, but I'm not really going
to choose a color based on these.
| | 05:08 | So to be honest with you, it's not really as
useful for me to see the colors in this way.
| | 05:12 | So when I am actually going through
the Pantone solid coated library, what I
| | 05:16 | like to do is go to the flyout menu
over here and turn on several options.
| | 05:20 | First of all, instead of viewing these
as thumbnails, I like to see these in
| | 05:24 | the small list view.
| | 05:26 | This way I got to actually see the
actual numbers and names of all these colors.
| | 05:31 | Next, because there are thousands of
colors inside of this Pantone library, I
| | 05:35 | wanted to be easy for me to jump to a
specific color that I know that I want to use.
| | 05:39 | So to do that I am going to go back to
the flyout menu here, and I am going to
| | 05:43 | choose to Show the Find Field.
| | 05:45 | To be honest with you, since
designers more often than not already know the
| | 05:48 | numbers of the Pantone colors that they
want to use, I really wish that the Find
| | 05:52 | field would actually be on by default,
when you open up the panel to begin with.
| | 05:57 | So now, for example, as I discussed
earlier on maybe I want to use Pantone
| | 06:01 | 185 in my document.
| | 06:03 | I happen to know that's a red color only
because I've been using Pantone for many years.
| | 06:07 | So what I can do now is instead of
scrolling through this list, simply put my
| | 06:11 | cursor here into the Find
field and type in the value of 185.
| | 06:15 | Notice over here it jumps right to this.
| | 06:17 | When I click on it, it will now get added to
the SWATCHES panel here inside of my documents.
| | 06:23 | It's important to realize right now
that this library here is giving me access
| | 06:27 | to the colors, but it doesn't mean
that all of these colors now already live
| | 06:30 | inside of my document.
| | 06:32 | Once I've added that swatch
to my document and I know that;
| | 06:35 | that's the only Pantone color that I
want to use, I could simply close this
| | 06:39 | panel and it goes away.
| | 06:40 | Now while I'm here, let me show you
something interesting about the Find
| | 06:44 | function here inside of the Pantone library.
| | 06:47 | The way that Illustrator searches
through these numbers can sometimes cause some
| | 06:51 | issues when you're trying
to find a specific number.
| | 06:53 | Let's say, for example, my client
requests that I use Pantone 245.
| | 06:57 | So all I would need to do is go to my
Find field here and type in 245, but
| | 07:02 | notice when I do that, and actually
it jumps to Pantone 1245, not 245.
| | 07:08 | How can I actually get to Pantone 245?
| | 07:10 | I don't want to have to scroll through
my whole list and more importantly, if I
| | 07:14 | type in 245, why does Illustrator give me 1245?
| | 07:18 | Well, the answer is that when I type
in 245, Illustrator stars doing a search
| | 07:22 | through all the numbers until it
finds those three numbers in a row.
| | 07:26 | Now because Pantone 1245 starts with a 1,
that actually shows up in the search
| | 07:31 | list before it gets to 245
which starts with the number 2.
| | 07:35 | That's why Illustrator thinks that I'm
looking for 1245 even when I know that I
| | 07:39 | am looking for Pantone 245.
| | 07:41 | So to get around this problem if you
know they have a number and you're having a
| | 07:45 | hard time finding it, go ahead and
highlight the value here and instead of
| | 07:48 | searching for 245 do a search for space 45.
| | 07:52 | In doing so I avoid the issue where
Illustrator finds the 1 before it finds the
| | 07:56 | 2 and it jumps directly and add a Pantone 245.
| | 07:59 | So if you're having trouble finding a
specific number in the library, go ahead
| | 08:04 | and type in a space before you type in
the value and that should help you out.
| | 08:08 | Now depending on what kind of design
industry you're in, there maybe additional
| | 08:12 | color libraries that you may want to access.
| | 08:14 | For example, Pantone publishes not just the
solid colors which are used mostly for print;
| | 08:19 | they also publish an entire library of
colors that are used in apparel design.
| | 08:24 | Sometimes you may need to purchase
those libraries separately from Pantone,
| | 08:28 | other times you can do a Google search
and you can actually those libraries and
| | 08:31 | download them to your computer and you
can then open them inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:35 | The way that you would do that is
again you'd come down to the SWATCHES panel
| | 08:38 | here and click on this Library button,
but instead of choosing Color Books
| | 08:42 | over your would actually scroll down further
to the bottom, where it says Other Library.
| | 08:46 | You would then point to some location on
your hard drive of where that library exists.
| | 08:51 | It's probably going to be just a
regular plain Illustrator file and that would
| | 08:54 | now open up another window
with those colors inside of it.
| | 08:57 | In fact, there are even ways to
create your own customized libraries
| | 09:01 | inside Illustrator.
| | 09:02 | That's something that we will actually
start covering in the next chapter when
| | 09:06 | we talk about color organization.
| | 09:08 | At this point, however, and you
should have a solid understanding of what a
| | 09:11 | process and a spot color is, and also
how you can access a specific Color Book
| | 09:16 | libraries such as Pantone
here inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding how the Color Guide works| 00:00 | The more we understand about what makes
the Color Guide panel work, the more we
| | 00:04 | can harness its power to make sure that
it gives us the suggestions that we can
| | 00:09 | use for the
illustrations that we are working on.
| | 00:12 | So in this movie, I want to focus on
exactly what the Color Guide is doing, and
| | 00:16 | that way we can derive the most benefit from it.
| | 00:19 | I'm going to start by clicking on the
pop-up here and I'm going to choose the
| | 00:22 | most basic of harmony rules,
something called Complementary.
| | 00:26 | Now, this only has two colors;
| | 00:28 | basically, whenever I choose a base
color, the Color Guide will now also
| | 00:32 | identify that color's complement.
| | 00:35 | We've already discussed in the beginning
of this title that complementary colors
| | 00:39 | are colors that appear opposite
each other on the Color Wheel.
| | 00:42 | So, for example, as I choose different
base colors here, like red, I can see
| | 00:46 | that its complement is green.
| | 00:48 | If I choose another color like yellow,
for example, it shows me its complement.
| | 00:52 | Now, to help us understand a little
bit better what the Color Guide is doing,
| | 00:56 | I'm going to go to the flyout menu of
the Color Guide and I'm going to choose
| | 01:00 | Color Guide Options.
| | 01:01 | Over here I have different Steps
that I could choose, and I have a
| | 01:05 | minimum number of 3;
| | 01:06 | the maximum number is 20, but I'm
going to let it sit right now at 3.
| | 01:10 | And I'm going to make sure that
my Variation slider is set to More.
| | 01:13 | Now I'm going to click OK, and let's
take a closer look at exactly what happens
| | 01:17 | inside the Color Guide.
| | 01:19 | Whenever I click on a swatch color,
that color now becomes my base color.
| | 01:24 | The Color Guide then identifies that
color and its own complement, because
| | 01:29 | that's the harmony rule that I've chosen.
| | 01:31 | It then takes these two colors and puts them
at the direct center of the panel right here.
| | 01:37 | So if you can just imagine taking these
two squares right now and turning them
| | 01:40 | on their side, where right now the
first color appears on top, the second color
| | 01:45 | appears directly beneath it, I now see
these two colors displayed vertically in
| | 01:50 | the center of my Color Guide panel.
| | 01:52 | Then to the left, the Color Guide now
provides three different Shades and three
| | 01:58 | different Tints of each of those colors.
| | 02:01 | That happens because before when I've
changed the options for the Color Guide,
| | 02:05 | I've chosen a value of 3
for the number of Steps.
| | 02:08 | If I use a value of 10, for example,
I would see 10 different Shades and 10
| | 02:13 | different Tints for each of
the colors inside of my harmony.
| | 02:17 | In this case, I'm now seeing Shades and
Tints as variations for my color, but if
| | 02:23 | I go to the flyout menu here, I can
choose to show Warm or Cool variations, or
| | 02:28 | Vivid and Muted variations in my colors as well.
| | 02:31 | Now, if I go back to Color Guide
Options for just a moment here, we have this
| | 02:35 | slider here of Variations.
| | 02:36 | More variation means that there's a
bigger difference in each step of the Shades
| | 02:41 | and Tints that are provided, where if I
use less of the variation, then I would
| | 02:45 | see that I only have very subtle
differences between each of the Shades or Tints
| | 02:49 | that I'm seeing in these colors.
| | 02:52 | So just as an example here, if I wanted
to change the number of Steps here all
| | 02:56 | the way to 20 and click OK, I could
then maybe make this Color Guide actually a
| | 03:00 | little bit wider by stretching it.
| | 03:02 | And I can see that Illustrator
generates a tremendous amount of variations,
| | 03:06 | actually 20 in each direction, 20
different Shades and 20 different Tints, which
| | 03:11 | would give me a total of 41 different values;
| | 03:14 | the color itself, plus 20 in each direction.
| | 03:17 | If I were to choose a color harmony that
had more colors, let's go to the pop-up
| | 03:21 | here and use something like, for
example, Right Complement, I would now see,
| | 03:26 | again, my base color plus all the
colors which are now displayed vertically to
| | 03:30 | the center and variations of
either of those in different directions.
| | 03:35 | So in other words, the Color Guide
panel provides use for me by me first
| | 03:40 | selecting a base color and then the
Color Guide will now, based on the color
| | 03:44 | harmony that I choose, suggest a range of
colors that might work well with my base color.
| | 03:50 | It's a powerful way to derive
inspiration around the use of color directly
| | 03:55 | inside of your design
environment here inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Color OrganizationOrganizing colors into groups| 00:00 | We all know that it's
usually good to be organized.
| | 00:03 | In previous titles here at the lynda.com
Online Training Library, I've sometimes
| | 00:07 | spoken about using layers in an
Illustrator document to better organize your
| | 00:11 | artwork so that it's easier to find
things and also so that others who are
| | 00:15 | working on your file can have an easier
time stepping through the document and
| | 00:18 | finding what they need.
| | 00:20 | In this chapter we are going to focus
specifically on organizing color inside of
| | 00:24 | your document, but make no mistake,
this is not the same as working with layers
| | 00:29 | where I just have things
that are just easier to find.
| | 00:31 | We are going to find out that now
inside of Illustrator if we are careful about
| | 00:36 | how we organize our colors, we can
unlock a tremendous amount of potential in
| | 00:40 | using the application to do
what we need to do more quickly.
| | 00:43 | Let me give you an example of what I mean here.
| | 00:46 | I right now have a file that I am
looking at and I've created several of
| | 00:49 | these color palettes.
| | 00:50 | This is actually usual whenever a
designer sits down to start working on a
| | 00:54 | project, they may create these different
color swatches and develop a color palette.
| | 01:00 | In other words, a range of colors
that I might use throughout my project.
| | 01:04 | Now, as you can see here in this document
I've created three rows of squares over here.
| | 01:09 | I basically have a row in the top, which
is my main or my primary color palette,
| | 01:14 | and then I've created maybe a
secondary color palette, and maybe also an
| | 01:17 | alternate version of that as well.
| | 01:19 | So I have three distinct palettes of colors.
| | 01:21 | The intention here is that these
colors might be used together, these colors
| | 01:26 | over here might be used together,
the same thing here as well.
| | 01:29 | Now, I've already gone through the
steps here of actually creating swatches.
| | 01:32 | In this case, I've actually created
global process swatches of all my colors.
| | 01:36 | So you can see here in my Swatches
panel that I have all these global colors
| | 01:40 | that I have created.
| | 01:41 | They actually right now appear in the order
that they're used here inside of this document.
| | 01:47 | At first glance this may look very organized.
| | 01:49 | I have colors that I've created on my screen.
| | 01:52 | I've then taken these colors and
I've used them to define global process
| | 01:55 | swatches inside of my document.
| | 01:58 | By the way, I'll just as a side note
here that I've chosen to use global
| | 02:02 | process colors here, because these are the
colors that I am going to be using in my artwork.
| | 02:06 | I am beyond the experimentation phase here.
| | 02:09 | So I don't want to use regular process swatches.
| | 02:11 | I want to work in a managed workflow
where if at any point later on I need to
| | 02:15 | make a change, I can do so very easily,
because I've used these global process colors.
| | 02:20 | Even so, I'm faced with a few issues now
when working with color inside of this document.
| | 02:26 | Let me explain.
| | 02:27 | I know that I have created these rows of
boxes here and that these colors belong together.
| | 02:32 | I've actually organized them here
inside of Illustrator according to the way
| | 02:35 | that they actually appear inside of those.
| | 02:38 | However, it's not really easy for me
to just quickly glance at the Swatches
| | 02:42 | panel and identify which colors belong
to which of these different palettes.
| | 02:47 | Again, overall right now I want to
work with all these colors, but I've also
| | 02:51 | separated these colors into individual palettes.
| | 02:54 | If you're in the world of apparel design,
you may refer to these also as colorways.
| | 02:59 | That's where I may have several
different colors that are all used inside of a
| | 03:02 | single print or pattern.
| | 03:04 | In fact, if I drag this Swatches panel
out here onto to my artboard, I'll see
| | 03:07 | that if I actually resize the panel, the
way that those swatches actually appear
| | 03:12 | are going to now change each time
I adjust the width of this panel.
| | 03:16 | That's because Illustrator just goes
ahead now and fits as many as it can on a
| | 03:19 | line, and then it wraps it to
the next line based on the width.
| | 03:23 | So I really don't have any easy way to
just quickly look at the Swatches panel
| | 03:27 | and understand which
colors are grouped together.
| | 03:30 | Now, another thing to notice about
these colors here is that, upon closer
| | 03:33 | inspection the first two colors
that are used in the alternate versions
| | 03:37 | here, this square right here and this one,
also appear repeated in this and in this one.
| | 03:43 | So I basically have the same color that
appears in multiple palettes of color.
| | 03:49 | However, in my Swatches panel I just have
one swatch that represents these two squares.
| | 03:55 | So I may have a single color that
is used in multiple palettes or in
| | 03:59 | multiple colorways, but again, I
have no easy way to identify that inside
| | 04:03 | the Swatches panel.
| | 04:05 | These color squares are very nice when
I am looking at this document, but I am
| | 04:09 | actually going to start working on some artwork.
| | 04:11 | Do I always need to have these little
squares at the bottom of all my artwork?
| | 04:15 | Some people actually do that, and the
reason why is because there is just no
| | 04:19 | easy way to look at this Swatches
panel and quickly identify which colors
| | 04:23 | actually belong with each other.
| | 04:25 | But even keeping all these things in mind,
there is an even bigger issue at play here.
| | 04:31 | You see, Illustrator is a computer program.
| | 04:33 | It has a tremendous amount of
functionality built into it.
| | 04:37 | In fact, as we are going to learn
throughout this entire title, there are
| | 04:41 | powerful ways that Illustrator can
replace multiple colors at once and help us
| | 04:45 | make changes to colors on many different levels.
| | 04:48 | However, at this point right now Illustrator
simply sees the swatches inside of my panel.
| | 04:53 | It knows that these colors are
somewhat special to me, but Illustrator has no
| | 04:57 | idea about the relationship
itself between these colors.
| | 05:00 | In other words, I, myself, know by
looking at the rectangles that I've now drawn
| | 05:05 | on my artboard that these colors belong
together, and that these colors belong
| | 05:09 | together, and the same thing
for the bottom row over here.
| | 05:12 | However, Illustrator simply
sees a whole bunch of swatches.
| | 05:15 | Illustrator doesn't know that any of
these colors have some kind of defined
| | 05:19 | relationship between each other.
| | 05:21 | In other words, there is
a miscommunication here.
| | 05:23 | I am not telling Illustrator everything
there is to know about how I am actually
| | 05:27 | working with color in this document.
| | 05:30 | If I could somehow just let
Illustrator know what I'm thinking about how I am
| | 05:33 | organizing color inside of my document,
I could ask Illustrator to do a lot of
| | 05:37 | things for me, things that I
would normally have to do manually.
| | 05:41 | In other words, if I could somehow
take all these colors right here that I've
| | 05:44 | specified in this row and tell
Illustrator that these colors belong together,
| | 05:49 | and then do the same thing for these
other color rows as well, I could help
| | 05:53 | Illustrator understand which
colors I want to go with each other.
| | 05:56 | The way that we do that inside of
Illustrator is we actually create something
| | 05:59 | called a Color Group.
| | 06:02 | In fact, if you look at the Swatches
panel, at the bottom here, this little
| | 06:05 | folder with a plus sign next
to it that says New Color Group.
| | 06:08 | Now, I am not going to click on it just yet.
| | 06:10 | I am actually going to click off of
this and right now click on the artboard,
| | 06:13 | because I want to make sure that no
art is selected when I use this option.
| | 06:17 | At a very basic level, while these
Color Groups are going to help me understand
| | 06:22 | how I'm organizing color inside of
Illustrator, more importantly, a color group
| | 06:26 | helps us tell Illustrator
which colors belong together.
| | 06:30 | There are several ways to create or define
these Color Groups inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:34 | One way is to actually just simply
click on the button with nothing selected.
| | 06:38 | This creates a New Color Group and I
call this one Primary Colors, for example.
| | 06:44 | Now, I'll click OK and you could see
now that a little folder appears inside
| | 06:48 | of my Swatches panel.
| | 06:50 | Now what I can do is I
could take certain colors.
| | 06:52 | For example, I've organized right now
the first six colors here to actually be
| | 06:57 | the first six colors in this Swatches panel.
| | 06:59 | So I can click on this swatch right here,
hold down my Shift key, and now click
| | 07:04 | on this swatch, that all these six
swatches are now selected, and I can now drag
| | 07:08 | them into the folder.
| | 07:10 | That's now how I've created a single
Color Group, which is called Primary Colors.
| | 07:16 | In fact, at any time I could take one
of these colors and drag them out of
| | 07:19 | the group as well as.
| | 07:20 | Now, there is another way
to create a Color Group.
| | 07:22 | For example, if I already know which
colors I want to appear inside of my group,
| | 07:26 | I can actually start by
selecting those colors first.
| | 07:29 | The next six swatches that appear over
here in my document belong to this set
| | 07:34 | over here of colors, which I
can call my Secondary Colors.
| | 07:37 | So I can again click on this one here.
| | 07:39 | By the way, if you wanted to press or
select noncontiguous swatches in the
| | 07:43 | Swatches panel, you can
press and hold the Command key;
| | 07:46 | if you're on a Windows machine that
would be the Ctrl key, and you might be able
| | 07:50 | to click colors that are not
necessarily connected with each other.
| | 07:53 | But in this case you actually want to go
ahead now and select all these first six colors.
| | 07:58 | Now with these swatches currently
selected, I can come down to the bottom of
| | 08:03 | Swatches panel, click on New Color Group.
| | 08:05 | Now, because I right now have those six
swatches selected, Illustrator assumes
| | 08:09 | that I want to create a New Color
Group for those six different swatches.
| | 08:13 | So I will call this group Secondary
Colors, and I'll click OK, and now you could
| | 08:19 | see that I have a second Color
Group inside of this document.
| | 08:22 | So I have one Color Group over
here called Primary Colors and one
| | 08:26 | called Secondary Colors.
| | 08:28 | Now I want to create a third group.
| | 08:30 | I am actually going to go ahead now
and just click on this blank area in the
| | 08:33 | Swatches panel to deselect that
group and create a new empty group here.
| | 08:37 | I am going to call this one
Alternate Colors, click OK.
| | 08:42 | Again, I have this empty group right now
and I can drag these colors into that group.
| | 08:47 | See, I can do it one at a time, and
you can drag them in as you need to.
| | 08:51 | Now, this group over here, this third
group called Alternate Colors, does have
| | 08:55 | these two colors that are also
used in this palette of colors.
| | 08:59 | If you think about it, you never
really wanted to have multiple copies of the
| | 09:03 | same color swatch inside of a single
document inside of Illustrator, because
| | 09:08 | that would seem to just make no sense.
| | 09:10 | However, since we have this concept now
of Color Groups inside of Illustrator,
| | 09:15 | there may be times where I want the
same color to appear in different groups.
| | 09:20 | And this is an important concept to
understand about how we organize color
| | 09:23 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 09:24 | The same swatch color can
actually appear in multiple Color Groups.
| | 09:30 | As a side note, if you're using spot
colors, you can have the same spot color
| | 09:34 | appear in multiple groups and they
will not separate onto two separate place,
| | 09:38 | they'll actually still be one plate
together, but it's a way for you to organize
| | 09:42 | that exact same spot color and
have it appear in multiple groups.
| | 09:47 | So let's see how I would do that.
| | 09:49 | Let me start out by going to
this swatch right over here.
| | 09:51 | I am going to just simply click and
drag it onto the New Swatch icon, which is
| | 09:55 | going to create a copy of it.
| | 09:57 | I am going to go over here, and I can
see now that the word copy was added to
| | 10:00 | the end of the name.
| | 10:01 | But I don't want that.
| | 10:02 | So I am going to double-click on it.
| | 10:03 | I am simply going to go ahead now and just
Delete the word copy from this name and click OK.
| | 10:10 | Now I'll take that swatch and drag
it into this Color Group right here.
| | 10:14 | I'll do the same now with
this other light green color.
| | 10:17 | I'll drag it to the New Swatch Icon.
| | 10:19 | That will create a duplicate.
| | 10:20 | Let me double-click on it, get rid of
the word copy that appears at the end of
| | 10:24 | it, click OK, and drag it into this group.
| | 10:27 | So now I have three groups and in two of
these groups I actually have two colors
| | 10:32 | that appear between those groups.
| | 10:35 | Because I've duplicated those swatches,
if I make a change to one of them, it
| | 10:39 | will actually update both
swatches and both groups.
| | 10:42 | Let's talk about a few important
concepts to know about working with Color
| | 10:45 | Groups inside of Illustrator.
| | 10:47 | First of all, no matter how I resize my
Swatches panel, I won't see any kind of reflow.
| | 10:53 | This allows me to take a quick
glance at my Swatches panel and see which
| | 10:57 | colors belong together.
| | 10:58 | It's also important to realize that the
order in which the colors appear inside
| | 11:03 | of the Color Group
actually do make a difference.
| | 11:06 | For example, if I take a look right
now at the colors that I have here in my
| | 11:10 | Alternate Color Group, I see they
don't appear in the same order here.
| | 11:14 | I am actually going to change that right now.
| | 11:16 | I am going to take this light blue color
and just drag it to the beginning here.
| | 11:19 | You can see you can just quickly drag
these around to adjust the order in which
| | 11:22 | these colors appear.
| | 11:23 | So I am going to go ahead now and do
that to match the way that I currently have
| | 11:27 | it set up inside of my document.
| | 11:29 | And now you can see that I have aligned the
colors in the same order that they're here.
| | 11:33 | This is actually very important to
understand, because, especially in the world
| | 11:37 | of, for example, apparel design, I may
have the exact same colors that are just
| | 11:42 | used in a different order inside of a pattern.
| | 11:45 | For example, the background may be one
color and the foreground may be another
| | 11:48 | color, but in a different variation of
that same pattern I may just swap the
| | 11:53 | background and foreground colors.
| | 11:54 | So the same colors are being used in
each of those palettes or colorways.
| | 11:59 | However, the order in which those
colors are being used is different.
| | 12:03 | In fact, if I look at my Primary
Color Group right now, I am actually going
| | 12:06 | to grab this light blue color and add that
to the beginning over here of my Color Group.
| | 12:10 | So now I have the colors, not only
defined into groups, but I also have the
| | 12:14 | colors in a very specific order.
| | 12:16 | So let's take a step back for a moment here.
| | 12:19 | Not only have I now told Illustrator
which colors belong together, I've also
| | 12:24 | given Illustrator specific
instructions about the order in which these
| | 12:27 | colors are to be used.
| | 12:29 | With that kind of information available,
Illustrator can now do a tremendous
| | 12:33 | amount of work for me,
saving me a lot of manual time.
| | 12:37 | For example, if Illustrator already
knows that all these colors are used in a
| | 12:40 | certain pattern, I could tell
Illustrator to swap the colors used in that
| | 12:44 | pattern for completely different set of colors.
| | 12:47 | Illustrator not only knows which colors
to use, it also knows in which order to
| | 12:51 | replace those colors.
| | 12:53 | So what I'm really trying to emphasize
here is that when you create Color Groups
| | 12:57 | inside of Illustrator you're not just
organizing them for your own use, you're
| | 13:01 | also letting Illustrator know how you
want to be able to use those colors so
| | 13:05 | that Illustrator can now
automate certain processes for you.
| | 13:09 | If you don't go through the trouble of
setting up Color Groups, you'll end up
| | 13:12 | severely limiting what
Illustrator can do with those colors.
| | 13:16 | In fact, I'll even tell you that when
you're working with smaller jobs, which
| | 13:19 | maybe only use one or two colors,
it's even worth it for you to create a color
| | 13:23 | group that contains just one color inside of it.
| | 13:26 | As we'll find out throughout this entire
title, Illustrator looks at colors that
| | 13:30 | are inside of groups differently than
colors that are just floating free inside
| | 13:34 | of your Swatches panel.
| | 13:35 | Granted, it's always best if you can
set up your Color Groups before you
| | 13:39 | actually start working on illustration.
| | 13:41 | However, many times you may get
artwork that's already been created and the
| | 13:45 | person who had worked on that artwork did
not organize their colors inside of groups.
| | 13:49 | Well, no worries about that, in the
next movie we'll talk about other ways
| | 13:53 | that we can actually create and
generate these color groups, even from
| | 13:57 | existing artwork.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating swatches and groups from artwork| 00:00 | So when it comes to working with color
inside of Illustrator, we already know
| | 00:04 | how important it is for
us to create color groups.
| | 00:07 | Not only does it help us keep our
color organized, it also helps Illustrator
| | 00:11 | understand how we want to use
that color within the document.
| | 00:15 | However, it's still a manual
process to actually create these groups.
| | 00:19 | More importantly, once you have the
colors that you want to work with, you
| | 00:22 | want to turn those into swatches that you can
also use throughout the rest of your artwork.
| | 00:27 | If you're a real organized person, you
might sit down and do that before you get
| | 00:30 | started working on a big project.
| | 00:32 | However, more often than not you're
also working with artwork that others have
| | 00:36 | created, and they may not have created swatches.
| | 00:39 | In fact, they may have just used colors
throughout your document and have these
| | 00:42 | phantom colors living around inside the
document, or they may have created some
| | 00:47 | swatches, but there's really no
intelligent way to understand the relationship
| | 00:50 | between those swatches.
| | 00:52 | That's why it's important to realize
that you don't actually have to sit and
| | 00:55 | build the color groups yourself.
| | 00:58 | If you already have the artwork that
you want to work with, you can tell
| | 01:01 | Illustrator to automatically
generate color groups based on your artwork.
| | 01:05 | Let me explain what I mean.
| | 01:07 | Right now, I have this document,
that's called artwork.ai, and I have several
| | 01:11 | different elements here.
| | 01:12 | In fact, we we've already seen these
different colors that I've set up, these
| | 01:15 | different palettes or color ways of
different cubes of color, and I may want
| | 01:19 | to use this as a way to define the color groups
that I want to create inside of this document.
| | 01:23 | So instead of selecting one of these
little rectangles here and then going to
| | 01:27 | the SWATCHES panel and creating a
swatch for it, and then doing the same thing
| | 01:30 | for each of these individually, and then
creating a new group and dragging those
| | 01:34 | colors into the group, I can do
them all at once in the following way:
| | 01:38 | I can select all these elements right now.
| | 01:40 | I know I've designed these to all work together.
| | 01:44 | So with all these different elements
right now selected, I can go to the
| | 01:47 | SWATCHES panel and click on the
little Folder icon here, which allows me to
| | 01:51 | create a new color group.
| | 01:52 | Now, in the past what we've done, is
we've actually clicked on this button
| | 01:56 | without any artworksselected on the artboard.
| | 01:59 | However, when you have artwork
selected, and then you click on this button,
| | 02:03 | Illustrator will assume that the colors
that are currently available inside of
| | 02:08 | that artwork are colors that you now
wanted to put into this new color group.
| | 02:12 | So we're actually going to
kill several birds with one stone.
| | 02:15 | I am just going to click on this button
right here, a dialog box for New Color
| | 02:19 | Group will show up and I will
choose to make this my Primary Colors.
| | 02:24 | I want Illustrator to create
swatches from the selected artwork.
| | 02:29 | Now, one thing that I can also do is
I can tell Illustrator not only just
| | 02:33 | convert that artwork into swatches,
but also convert the Process Colors to
| | 02:37 | Global Process Colors.
| | 02:40 | So in this way, I actually,
I'm doing many things at once.
| | 02:43 | I am creating many swatches at the
same time, and I'm also turning those
| | 02:48 | swatches into Global Process Swatches.
| | 02:50 | Now, when I click OK, I am also now creating
a new group that now contains those colors.
| | 02:56 | You see how easy that was?
| | 02:58 | Let's see how that works now
with other kinds of artwork.
| | 03:00 | For example, these aren't just rectangles here;
| | 03:02 | this is some artwork that I've already created.
| | 03:04 | I now want to create a color group
that shows me all the colors that are used
| | 03:08 | inside of this piece of artwork.
| | 03:10 | I can select it, go to my Swatches panel,
click Create New Color Group, give it
| | 03:16 | a name, let's say I call this one Card,
and I can instantly generate a new color
| | 03:20 | group with swatches
inside of it for this artwork.
| | 03:23 | Notice, by the way, there is another
option here called Include Swatches for Tints.
| | 03:27 | If, for example, I have a single color,
but I have different tints of that color
| | 03:31 | being used in that artwork, I could
actually create a separate swatch for each
| | 03:36 | tint value of that color.
| | 03:38 | But again, once I click OK, I now
have a color group that's created for me.
| | 03:43 | Note, by the way, that I do now have the color
white that appears inside if this color group.
| | 03:47 | That's because white is
used inside of this artwork.
| | 03:50 | So Illustrator not only creates the
colors that it finds, but if it finds black
| | 03:55 | or white, it'll create
swatches for those as well.
| | 03:58 | And that's important to understand
especially when you consider that in many
| | 04:01 | areas of design black and white are
treated differently than other colors.
| | 04:06 | For example, if you're just a regular
graphic designer, and you're used to doing
| | 04:10 | work in the area of print, you probably
think of black as like a key color, and
| | 04:15 | white probably means nothing to you more
than paper, whatever color the paper is
| | 04:20 | or whatever none is, is probably what white is.
| | 04:23 | However, if you're an apparel
designer and you're thinking about screen
| | 04:27 | printing some ink onto a T-shirt, white
actually does have to be printed onto that T-shirt.
| | 04:33 | So white is a color just like anything else.
| | 04:36 | We'll learn a lot more about how
Illustrator treats these colors later on
| | 04:40 | inside of this title.
| | 04:41 | But for now, understand that any color
that Illustrator finds inside of your
| | 04:45 | artwork, be it black, white or another
color, will be turned into a swatch when
| | 04:49 | you use this method to create color groups.
| | 04:52 | Let's take a look at some other artwork.
| | 04:54 | Here is some artwork right now
that has some gradients inside of it.
| | 04:57 | In fact, if I use my Direct Selection
tool and I click on this object right here
| | 05:01 | which is filled with a gradient, in my
Gradient panel I see that I have several
| | 05:04 | different colors that are
being used inside of that gradient.
| | 05:08 | Now, when I use the same method as
we've been doing until now by selecting the
| | 05:12 | artwork and creating a new color group,
Illustrator not only is using the colors
| | 05:17 | that it finds inside of that, it also
takes the colors that are even being used
| | 05:21 | inside of the gradients itself.
| | 05:23 | Now, this is an important concept to
note about working with Illustrator.
| | 05:27 | When I create color groups, I can only
put solid colors into that color group.
| | 05:32 | For example, I don't have the ability to have a
Gradient Swatch appear inside of a color group.
| | 05:39 | The color group contains all of the
colors that are being used in that piece
| | 05:42 | of artwork even if some of those colors
are simply gradient stops within a gradient.
| | 05:48 | However, by definition a gradient
usually has more than one color.
| | 05:52 | So I can't put a Gradient Swatch into
a group because the gradient represents
| | 05:56 | more than one color.
| | 05:58 | A color group is always going to
be collection of individual colors.
| | 06:01 | I think this point will make a little
bit more sense when we focus on patterns.
| | 06:05 | For example, right over here I have
a single rectangle right now that's
| | 06:08 | filled with a pattern.
| | 06:09 | I actually want to create a color
group that shows me all the colors that are
| | 06:13 | being used inside of that pattern.
| | 06:15 | So with that single object selected,
I can now click on this button here to
| | 06:19 | create a New Color Group, click OK, and
notice now that all the colors that are
| | 06:23 | being used in that pattern right
now appear inside of this color group.
| | 06:27 | I can't have a pattern swatch inside of
a color group, because by definition, a
| | 06:33 | pattern swatch probably has
more than one color inside of it.
| | 06:36 | Color groups always contain colors,
don't think about the method in which the
| | 06:41 | colors are being used, think
about the colors themselves.
| | 06:44 | Each color is something separate.
| | 06:46 | A color group references all the
colors that are being used in some kind of
| | 06:51 | artwork whether that artwork is a
gradient, a pattern, or any other object
| | 06:55 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:56 | In fact, if I were to select a gradient
mesh object and turn that into a color
| | 07:01 | group, all the different colors that are
being used inside of that gradient mesh
| | 07:05 | will show up as individual
swatches inside of this group.
| | 07:09 | So now we understand why color groups
are so important inside of Illustrator
| | 07:13 | and we've also identified a way to
create color groups in a painless and
| | 07:17 | effective manner.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Removing unused swatches from documents| 00:00 | As you work on a document to make
revisions and changes, you may find that you
| | 00:05 | have accumulated a lot of
different swatches inside of that document.
| | 00:09 | Now at some point you may want to clean
house and get rid of the swatches that
| | 00:13 | are no longer necessary for that document.
| | 00:16 | Not only does it help reduce the
confusion in trying to find the colors that you
| | 00:19 | want, it can also help reduce the
file size of the document and prevent
| | 00:24 | accidents maybe later on down the road.
| | 00:27 | There are actually two ways to
accomplish this and let me show them to you.
| | 00:30 | I am going to start up by just
creating a brand-new document.
| | 00:33 | I am going to use the Print Profile
here and when I click OK, you'll see that
| | 00:37 | this document already now
has some swatches inside of it.
| | 00:40 | Now, I did not create these swatches,
these are swatches that actually are
| | 00:43 | inside of the Print New
Document Profile document.
| | 00:47 | We'll actually talk about how to
manage that thing specifically, meaning, how
| | 00:51 | we can actually make sure that
every new document I create has only the
| | 00:55 | swatches that we need.
| | 00:56 | We're going to do that
later on inside of this chapter.
| | 00:59 | But for now I have a whole bunch of color
swatches inside of my document and I don't need them.
| | 01:04 | Now, the first thing I can do is I can
actually go to the little flyout menu
| | 01:07 | right here of the SWATCHES panel
itself, and choose Select All Unused.
| | 01:13 | This will ask you now go ahead and
select all the swatches that are not being
| | 01:16 | used inside of my document.
| | 01:18 | I could then click on little Trash
Icon here, and choose yes over here to
| | 01:22 | completely get rid of that.
| | 01:23 | Now, notice, by the way, that there
are some swatches that still remain.
| | 01:27 | Even though I told Illustrator to
select all the unused swatches, I still have
| | 01:31 | some remaining, even though;
| | 01:32 | I don't have anything inside of my document.
| | 01:34 | So where are these swatches being used?
| | 01:38 | The answer is that sometimes other
library elements inside of your document like
| | 01:42 | Brushes or Graphics Styles or Symbols,
for example, maybe using some of those
| | 01:47 | colors, and that's why Illustrator
still senses those colors as being used.
| | 01:51 | What you can do is now at this point
manually go ahead now and just select these.
| | 01:57 | I am just going to hold down my Shift
key as I select multiple elements here,
| | 02:01 | and I can just drag them into the
garbage, do so over here with this as well.
| | 02:04 | So now I've manually removed all
the swatches inside of this document.
| | 02:09 | If I did have some artwork already in
this document, when I choose Select All
| | 02:13 | Unused Colors, Illustrator will
obviously also leave swatches where color is
| | 02:18 | being used inside of that document.
| | 02:20 | That's one way that you can actually go
ahead and delete all the swatches inside
| | 02:23 | of your document that are not necessary.
| | 02:26 | If you want to go a step beyond that
and automate the process, and not only
| | 02:29 | think about swatches, but also
cleaning out any unused Brushes, or Symbols,
| | 02:33 | or Graphic styles for that matter, you can
actually use an action that comes with Illustrator.
| | 02:38 | I am going to create a new
document here and just click OK.
| | 02:41 | Again, I am using the Print Profile
for this, just so I get a whole bunch of
| | 02:44 | swatches back here inside of this
document, and I am going to go over to the
| | 02:47 | Window menu and choose to
open up my Actions panel.
| | 02:51 | In Illustrator's default actions, if I
scroll down the list over here, I can see
| | 02:55 | there's something here
called Delete Unused panel Items.
| | 02:59 | If I click on that action and choose
to play the action, it will actually go
| | 03:02 | through my document and delete those.
| | 03:05 | Now what I found is that sometimes you
just need to keep repeating that option a
| | 03:08 | few times, until you actually get
rid of as many things as possible.
| | 03:12 | In this case here you can see that I am
just left with my basic brush here, I've
| | 03:16 | no symbols left in my document, my
graphic styles are cleaned out, and again, in
| | 03:20 | the event where I still have a few
things that are kind of left over, I would
| | 03:23 | have to delete those manually.
| | 03:25 | But in this way, I can just run this
action very quickly and have all those
| | 03:29 | elements be deleted for me.
| | 03:31 | Now remember, even when I'm using
this action, if there are colors that
| | 03:34 | are actually used in my document, those colors
will still remain inside of my SWATCHES panel.
| | 03:39 | So these are just a few ways to
manage the colors in your document and make
| | 03:43 | sure that things don't get out of hand
as the document goes through multiple
| | 03:47 | revisions.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Replacing and merging color swatches| 00:00 | There maybe times when working on a
design where you have certain colors that
| | 00:04 | have already been applied to your
document and you want to kind of consolidate
| | 00:09 | those colors, maybe you have too many
colors being used right now and you want
| | 00:13 | to combine them into one color.
| | 00:15 | Let's take this file, for example.
| | 00:17 | I have some text over here that's
using one color, and then it has some text
| | 00:20 | that appears beneath it using a
different color and maybe I decide later on that
| | 00:24 | you know what, I really don't want the
text be two different colors, I want them
| | 00:28 | to both be using the same color.
| | 00:30 | Now I could go ahead and actually
select the elements and then change their
| | 00:33 | color, or in this example
here I am using Global Colors.
| | 00:38 | That would mean that I can make a change
more efficiently by modifying the swatches.
| | 00:42 | Again, when you're using Global
Colors inside of Illustrator you have more
| | 00:45 | options available to you, because by
changing the swatch, it automatically
| | 00:50 | changes the artwork inside of the document.
| | 00:53 | Now there are several ways to do this.
| | 00:55 | First of all, I can see over here if I
click on one of these shapes, I am going
| | 00:58 | to use my Direct Selection tool here,
and just click let's say on the L right
| | 01:02 | over here, and I can see that right now
the Swatches panel identifies this color
| | 01:06 | right now as being used for that object.
| | 01:09 | So I know that I have that color right
here, and if I click on let's say the
| | 01:12 | K over here in the word Sakura, I see that
this is the color that's currently being used.
| | 01:18 | Now I want this darker color
to be used for all of my text.
| | 01:21 | So here is what I can do.
| | 01:23 | I can actually just deselect all
the artwork, I have nothing selected
| | 01:26 | whatsoever, go to my Swatches panel and
what I can do is I can take this swatch
| | 01:31 | and click and drag it while holding
down the Option key on my keyboard.
| | 01:35 | Now, I am on a Mac.
| | 01:36 | If you're on Windows, you'd be holding
down the Alt key and then dragging it on
| | 01:40 | top of the swatch that you want to modify.
| | 01:42 | So what I am doing is I am telling
Illustrator, take this color right now and
| | 01:47 | copy it onto this swatch or overwrite
this swatch right now with the Option key.
| | 01:51 | Notice now that with my Option
key down I get kind of a dark black
| | 01:54 | outline around that swatch.
| | 01:56 | Now, when I release the mouse, you will
see now that both the swatches have the
| | 02:00 | same color definition.
| | 02:02 | Now, since I've used the Global
Swatch, the artwork on my artboard has
| | 02:06 | now updated likewise.
| | 02:08 | My only problem is right now I have two
swatches, when all I really need is one
| | 02:12 | swatch, and I've kind of destroyed or
gotten rid of that other swatch, so I end
| | 02:16 | up with just two swatches that mean the
same thing which in this case here is a
| | 02:20 | little bit extra and unwieldy.
| | 02:22 | So I am going to press Undo, Command+Z
and I want to show you a yet another
| | 02:26 | way that you could actually just
replace colors using the SWATCHES panel
| | 02:30 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:31 | So I am going to start by selecting
the color that I want to remain in my
| | 02:35 | document, so that's the color right here.
| | 02:37 | Next, I am going to hold down my
Command key, I am on a Mac, but if you're on
| | 02:41 | Windows, that would be the Ctrl key and
now I am going to select a color that I
| | 02:45 | want to remove from this document.
| | 02:47 | Now, I will go to the SWATCHES panel
flyout menu and choose a setting here
| | 02:51 | called Merge Swatches.
| | 02:53 | When I do so, Illustrator gets rid of the
old color and gives me just the new color.
| | 02:59 | Notice over here that wherever the
older color was used, it was now replaced
| | 03:02 | with this new color.
| | 03:03 | It's important to realize however,
that the Merge command does not work
| | 03:07 | with regular process swatches, it only works
with global process swatches or spot swatches.
| | 03:14 | So let's go to that step again,
because it can be quite useful when working
| | 03:17 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 03:18 | Say at this point your client says,
I love the design, but I really want
| | 03:22 | this color that I am using right over here
to actually be printing using a Pantone color.
| | 03:27 | In fact, in this document right now,
I've already added a Pantone Swatch.
| | 03:31 | This one right here called Pantone 5483.
| | 03:34 | So basically, wherever this color is
used in my document, I now want it to be
| | 03:39 | replaced with the Pantone Color.
| | 03:42 | Now again, what I could do is I could
simply go ahead now and select something
| | 03:46 | inside of my document.
| | 03:47 | I could choose the Select setting over
here and say, Select > Same > Fill Color.
| | 03:52 | Now all those objects with that fill
color becomes selected, and then I could
| | 03:56 | simply switch it to be filled
with a different swatch color.
| | 03:59 | But there are two things that happen
here, first of all, I now need to go ahead
| | 04:03 | and select all those colors.
| | 04:05 | Let's say that color is being used in
a stroke also, in Illustrator there is
| | 04:10 | really no way to modify a fill
and a stroke at the same time.
| | 04:13 | So I'd need two sets of actions to
actually make that happen and additionally,
| | 04:18 | if that color is also being used inside
of a gradient or inside of a pattern, I
| | 04:22 | have to go through the steps of
modifying those objects as well.
| | 04:26 | It also means that I will be left with
two swatches inside of my document, the
| | 04:29 | Global Process versions and the Spot
version and I want to avoid any confusion.
| | 04:34 | I really only want to be left with one
color swatch inside of this document, so
| | 04:37 | here's what I am going to do.
| | 04:38 | I am going to deselect my artwork here.
| | 04:40 | This artwork is still being colored by
the Global Process color, which is right
| | 04:44 | here and what I could do now
is click once on my Spot Color.
| | 04:50 | I am doing that because when I am
using the Merge command and I want to
| | 04:53 | merge color swatches, I have to first select
a color that I want to keep in my document.
| | 04:59 | Then I am going to press down the
Command key or the Ctrl key on Windows, and I
| | 05:03 | am now going to select a color that
I want to remove from my document.
| | 05:07 | Now, I will go to the Swatches panel
flyout menu and I will choose Merge Swatches.
| | 05:12 | Illustrator now removes the other
swatch and any colors that were filled with
| | 05:16 | that color are now filled with my Pantone color.
| | 05:19 | So now you can see if I select let's
say the K right here, it's now filled
| | 05:23 | with that Pantone 5483.
| | 05:25 | If I am using global swatches or spot
swatches, I can use the Merge command
| | 05:31 | inside of Illustrator to make color
changes quickly and efficiently without
| | 05:35 | having to even select my artwork.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and managing your own color libraries| 00:00 | When working with colors there are
times when those colors are specific to one
| | 00:04 | document and then of course, there are
times when you want to use those colors
| | 00:08 | across multiple documents.
| | 00:10 | Take this example right here.
| | 00:12 | We've already gone through the
process of taking these color chips and
| | 00:15 | creating color palettes.
| | 00:16 | Then we've turned those into color
groups inside of this Swatches panel.
| | 00:20 | But these are my Corporate colors
for this company called Hansel & Petal.
| | 00:24 | I want to now be able to use these
colors across many of the different projects
| | 00:29 | I'm going to be creating
for this particular client.
| | 00:31 | Now if I'm a freelance designer and I
have many clients, I may want to have
| | 00:35 | different libraries of color for each
of my clients, or if I am working in a
| | 00:40 | large company I may have a variety of
different projects that I'm working on
| | 00:44 | and I may have different color palettes
that I've created for each of those projects.
| | 00:49 | A fashion designer may have
different seasons they are working with.
| | 00:53 | So what we really want is some ability
not only to create these swatches and
| | 00:57 | organize them into groups, we also want
to save these as complete libraries that
| | 01:02 | we can call up and access as we need them.
| | 01:05 | Doing so is actually pretty simple.
| | 01:08 | All I need to do is go over to flyout
menu of the SWATCHES panel, and then at
| | 01:13 | the bottom of the list over here
choose to Save the Swatch Library as AI.
| | 01:18 | Now it's important to realize
here that I have two options;
| | 01:21 | I've something called Save Swatch
Library as ASE, and I have something called
| | 01:25 | Save Swatch Library as AI.
| | 01:27 | And the ASE library, which stands for
Adobe Swatch Exchange is a universal
| | 01:32 | library format that works across
InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.
| | 01:37 | So if I've these colors that I've
created right now, and I want to share those
| | 01:41 | with other applications, for example,
I maybe working on a brochure than I'm
| | 01:44 | doing inside of InDesign, or I
maybe working with some images inside of
| | 01:48 | Photoshop, and I want to access these
colors in those applications as well, so I
| | 01:52 | could save these swatches as an ASE file.
| | 01:56 | I could then go into other
applications and load those swatches.
| | 02:00 | It's important to realize though that
ASE files can only contain solid colors;
| | 02:05 | meaning they can't contain gradients
or patterns, and that format also does
| | 02:11 | not support the concept of groups.
| | 02:13 | Only Illustrator has the ability to
organize your swatches into distinct groups,
| | 02:19 | however, both Photoshop and
InDesign don't have that capability.
| | 02:23 | So if you save your file as an ASE file,
you're going to lose your group structure.
| | 02:29 | Now in our example here, I'm going
to be using this library back inside
| | 02:32 | of Illustrator again.
| | 02:33 | So I'm going to choose to save my
Swatch Library as an AI file, this will allow
| | 02:38 | me to not only maintain my group
structure that I'm creating inside of the
| | 02:41 | Swatches, it will also support the
ability to include Gradient and Pattern
| | 02:45 | swatches that I may have in my file as well.
| | 02:48 | So I'm going to choose this option
and I'm going to give my file a name.
| | 02:52 | This is going to be Hansel & Petal, my
corporate colors, so I'm going to call
| | 02:56 | this one, HANSEL_CORPORATE.
| | 02:59 | Now I'm going to click Save, and I've just
now successfully created this library file.
| | 03:06 | How do I access that file?
| | 03:08 | Well, if I go to the lower left-hand
corner of the Swatches panel, the same
| | 03:12 | place that I went to when I was
looking for PANTONE libraries, for example.
| | 03:16 | I can scroll down through this list all
the way to the bottom where there is now
| | 03:19 | something here called User Defined, and
my HANSEL_CORPORATE library is now here.
| | 03:24 | If I choose it, it now shows
up as an external library file.
| | 03:29 | I can now choose to bring those
colors into my document by clicking on them
| | 03:33 | or dragging them in.
| | 03:35 | So, for example, I'm going to create a
New Document here by pressing Command+N
| | 03:38 | or Ctrl+N and I'm going to use now
the New Document Profile for Print.
| | 03:43 | Notice now that my corporate colors
were not in this document, but just by
| | 03:47 | clicking on any of these folders, I can
actually add those color groups directly
| | 03:51 | now through this document.
| | 03:53 | Now it is important to realize where
these library files are actually stored so
| | 03:58 | that when you click on this button over
here, Illustrator is able to see them in
| | 04:02 | this User Defined submenu.
| | 04:04 | When you save your swatch library file,
Illustrator automatically puts it in
| | 04:08 | a certain location.
| | 04:09 | I want to show you where that
location is so that you can actually place
| | 04:12 | files there yourself.
| | 04:14 | I'm going to go to my Finder here,
and I'm going to navigate to my own user
| | 04:18 | folder, my folder is called mordygolding, but
your username probably would be your own name.
| | 04:24 | And I'm going to the
Library folder and open that up.
| | 04:27 | Inside the Library folder I'm going to
go to Application Support, and then I'm
| | 04:31 | going to go to Adobe > Adobe Illustrator
CS5 > en_US, and that's because that is
| | 04:37 | now English US in my computer, if
you're using a different language you would
| | 04:40 | see it there listed.
| | 04:42 | I'm going to scroll down over here to a
folder called Swatches and here you can
| | 04:47 | see that HANSEL_CORPORATE.ai file,
that's the library file that I saved.
| | 04:52 | If you're on Windows, the location
where you need to save these files is under
| | 04:56 | Documents and Settings, your
Username > Application Data > Adobe > Adobe
| | 05:01 | Illustrator CS5 Settings and then again en_US.
| | 05:07 | It's important to realize that a color
library is simply an Illustrator file, so
| | 05:11 | you can take any Illustrator file on
your system and copy it into this Swatches
| | 05:16 | folder and it will show up as a
library file inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:21 | In other words, any swatches that
appear inside of that Illustrator file can be
| | 05:25 | loaded as an external library.
| | 05:26 | Now if we go back to Illustrator here
for a moment and I take a look at the
| | 05:30 | libraries that I have access to, once
again, down here at the bottom where it
| | 05:34 | says, User Defined, I have
my library that I created.
| | 05:38 | However, I'm not restricted to only working
with libraries that appear in that folder.
| | 05:43 | I could of course, go to choose this
option called Other Library and then point
| | 05:47 | to any other location on
either a server or my hard drive.
| | 05:51 | I can point to any other Illustrator
file and Illustrator will load up any of
| | 05:55 | the swatches that appear inside of that
Illustrator file, as external libraries
| | 05:58 | that I can move colors from it into my document.
| | 06:01 | I'll click Cancel here, and that's how
you can actually create and also manage
| | 06:06 | your own customized
libraries inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making custom libraries permanent| 00:00 | You may create color libraries
for colors that you use quite often.
| | 00:05 | You may find that you'll have them
open on your screen, but when you quit
| | 00:08 | Illustrator and then re-launch it again,
those panels go away, and you now need
| | 00:12 | to reload those custom color libraries again.
| | 00:15 | Let me share with you a way that you
can actually keep these panels always
| | 00:19 | available on your screen even after
you quit and re-launch Illustrator.
| | 00:23 | I'm going to start by creating a new
document here, just a regular plain Print
| | 00:27 | document here, and I'm
going to my SWATCHES panel.
| | 00:29 | I'm actually going to load
one of my custom libraries here.
| | 00:32 | I already created one in my User
Defined section here called HANSEL_CORPORATE,
| | 00:37 | and again, these are the corporate
colors that I'm using for Hansel & Petal, and
| | 00:40 | I use those quite often so I want to
have those available to me on my screen.
| | 00:43 | I also use PANTONE solid coated colors
a lot and I don't want to have to keep
| | 00:49 | loading that library as well, so I'll
come back here to my SWATCHES panel and
| | 00:53 | choose to go to Color Books and then
PANTONE solid coated, and now I have
| | 00:58 | that library open up.
| | 01:00 | And of course, I'm going to go to the flyout
menu here and choose to Show the Find Field.
| | 01:04 | So now I have these panels here and I
want to be able to use them quite often,
| | 01:08 | but like I said, when I quit
Illustrator for the day and I come back in
| | 01:11 | tomorrow and I re-launched the
application, I don't want to have to reload
| | 01:15 | these panels again.
| | 01:16 | So what I'll do is I'll go to flyout
menu of these customized color panels and
| | 01:21 | I'll choose this option here called Persistent.
| | 01:24 | Making a library Persistent ensures that
it will always be visible on your screen.
| | 01:30 | So notice now that I've chosen that
option if I go back to the flyout menu I can
| | 01:33 | see there is now a check mark next to
Persistent, and I'll do the same thing for
| | 01:37 | the PANTONE Solid Coated libraries.
| | 01:40 | Now that I've made both of these
libraries persistent, they will always appear
| | 01:44 | on my screen when I launch Illustrator.
| | 01:47 | Now the reason why this is useful is
because I want to have access to these
| | 01:51 | colors, but I don't necessarily want
to add all these colors to my start up
| | 01:54 | document which would mean that my
document has a tremendous amount of
| | 01:58 | colors inside of it.
| | 01:59 | So in other words, they are always
easily accessible and I can add them as I
| | 02:04 | need to, to my document that I'm working on.
| | 02:07 | If you have the screen real estate to
support it, you can have as many of these
| | 02:10 | custom libraries set up to be persistent.
| | 02:13 | You can also group them
together within the same window.
| | 02:16 | So, for example, I could take the
PANTONE Solid Coated library here and drag it
| | 02:20 | into the HANSEL_CORPORATE window here,
so they both now live within that same
| | 02:24 | window or that same frame.
| | 02:26 | Hopefully, this tip will make it
easier for you to keep these colors that are
| | 02:30 | used often, easily accessible.
| | 02:33 | Now of course, there may be times
when you use a certain color a lot, in
| | 02:37 | fact, maybe there are a few colors
and you use them quite often, in those
| | 02:41 | cases we might look at doing
something little bit different, such as adding
| | 02:44 | them to our startup documents.
| | 02:46 | We'll see how to do that in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding custom colors to new documents| 00:00 | You may notice that every time you
create a new file inside of Illustrator,
| | 00:04 | there are already many colors
inside of your SWATCHES panel.
| | 00:08 | Ever wonder where those colors come from?
| | 00:10 | How often you actually even use those colors?
| | 00:13 | More often than not, you probably have
your own colors that you want to work with.
| | 00:17 | Let's talk about a way where we can
customize Illustrator to always work with
| | 00:21 | the colors that we want to use.
| | 00:23 | Let's start from the beginning here.
| | 00:24 | I'm going to create a new document by
pressing Command+N or Ctrl+N, and you
| | 00:28 | notice that there is a pop-up
here that says New Document Profile.
| | 00:32 | Right now, it's set to Print, but I
have things like Web, Mobile and Devices,
| | 00:36 | Video and Film, so on and so forth.
| | 00:38 | I'm going to start up with Print for now.
| | 00:40 | I'm going to choose OK, and you'll
immediately see that my SWATCHES panel has
| | 00:44 | become populated with a whole bunch of swatches.
| | 00:47 | These are swatches that are actually inside of
a New Document Profile, which is called Print.
| | 00:53 | You see Adobe actually creates these
new document profiles, so that when you
| | 00:58 | create new documents, it already
has certain settings inside of it.
| | 01:02 | For example, I'm going to create a new
document again, but this time, I'm going
| | 01:06 | to choose the Web at New Document Profile.
| | 01:09 | And notice now when I click OK, I
see a different set of swatches.
| | 01:14 | Now it could be that you have no need
at all for any of these swatches and they
| | 01:17 | simply adds extra overheads to your file,
possibly causing confusion or mistakes
| | 01:22 | down the line, or they just get in the
way of you being able to focus on your
| | 01:26 | SWATCHES panel seeing the
colors that you want to work with.
| | 01:29 | On top of that, there may be
certain colors that you always use.
| | 01:33 | For example, if your company always has
a certain PANTONE color that you want to
| | 01:37 | work with, instead of having to open up
that PANTONE color panel each time, even
| | 01:42 | if it's persistent, you don't want to
have to keep adding that color to your
| | 01:45 | document, it would be great
if that color was always there.
| | 01:48 | The nice thing about working with
Illustrator now is that you have the ability
| | 01:51 | to create these new document profiles.
| | 01:54 | New Document Profiles can be thought of
as Master documents, they are like the
| | 01:59 | parents of all
Illustrator files that you create.
| | 02:02 | So, for example, when I hit Command+N to
create a new file, and I go to this New
| | 02:06 | Document Profile pop-up, instead of
choosing between Print and Web or any of
| | 02:11 | these other settings that Adobe
provides for me, I can actually create my own.
| | 02:15 | In fact, I can create as
many of my own as I want.
| | 02:19 | Let's see how to do that.
| | 02:20 | I'm going to press Cancel here, I'm
actually going to close both of these
| | 02:22 | documents, just by pressing Command+W or
Ctrl+W, and let's start from scratch here.
| | 02:28 | I'm going to create a new document and
since I know that the work I'm going to
| | 02:31 | be doing is probably going to be print
based for now, I'm going to start off
| | 02:35 | by choosing one that's closest to what I'm
going to be creating, so I'm going to choose Print.
| | 02:39 | If you were thinking about Web design
and you want to create a new document
| | 02:42 | profile for Web projects, you would
choose a new document profile based on web.
| | 02:48 | But for now, I'm going to choose Print.
| | 02:49 | I can also customize any
of these things that I want.
| | 02:52 | For example, if I know that I always
like to use inches, I'll change my Units
| | 02:55 | here to be Inches, and I'm going to click OK.
| | 02:59 | Next, I really don't need to work with
any of these swatch colors that are right
| | 03:03 | here, they're useless to me.
| | 03:04 | I have my own colors that I want to work with.
| | 03:07 | So I'm going to use the action
that we learned about earlier.
| | 03:09 | I'm going to go to my Window menu and
choose Actions, and I'm going to choose
| | 03:13 | Delete Unused panel Items and
I'm going to run that action.
| | 03:16 | We'll run it once or twice just to get
rid of as much of it as I can, and I'm
| | 03:20 | going to close the Actions panel and
just manually just delete whatever colors
| | 03:23 | are still left here.
| | 03:25 | I'm going to leave black and white,
it's always good to have those, even
| | 03:27 | though they're always readily
accessible in your Color panel using these
| | 03:31 | little two buttons right here.
| | 03:32 | But now I want to add the
colors that I want to work with.
| | 03:35 | So I'm going to my HANSEL_CORPORATE library
here, I'm going to add these color groups.
| | 03:39 | Next, I'm going to go to my PANTONE
library here and maybe I want to choose
| | 03:43 | PANTONE 185, I'll choose to add that
one right here, all you have to do is just
| | 03:47 | click on it once, and then it
gets added to your Swatches panel.
| | 03:50 | And maybe I want to use PANTONE 285 as well.
| | 03:54 | So I'll add that color. Great!
| | 03:56 | So now I have two Pantone colors, and I
have my Hansel & Petal corporate color library.
| | 04:01 | I've now added them to this
document, which is a regular plain
| | 04:04 | Illustrator document.
| | 04:05 | However, I'm going to save this
document in a special location that's going to
| | 04:10 | identify this as a new document
profile that I can use to generate newer
| | 04:14 | Illustrator documents.
| | 04:16 | I'll start by going to the File menu, and
I'm going to choose to Save my document.
| | 04:21 | I'm going to go to my user folder, then
I'm going to go to Library > Application
| | 04:26 | Support > Adobe > Adobe Illustrator CS5
> en_US, and if I scroll down here, if
| | 04:34 | you remember here is where we actually
stored our swatch library files, I also
| | 04:39 | have a folder here called New Document Profiles.
| | 04:42 | I'm going to go into that folder and
you can see that in this folder there
| | 04:45 | are already some Illustrator files like
Print and Flash Catalyst, and Mobile and Devices.
| | 04:51 | Do those names sound familiar?
| | 04:53 | That's what you currently see now when
you choose the New Document Profile list,
| | 04:57 | when you create a new document.
| | 04:59 | If you're on Windows, the location
where you need to save these files is under
| | 05:03 | Documents and Settings, your
Username > Application Data > Adobe > Adobe
| | 05:09 | Illustrator CS5 Settings, and then again, en_US.
| | 05:13 | I'm going to call this one Hansel & Petal.
| | 05:19 | I'm saving it as a regular Illustrator file;
| | 05:21 | only I'm saving it right now
in this particular location.
| | 05:24 | I'm going to click Save, and then
I'll choose OK to take Illustrator's
| | 05:28 | default save settings.
| | 05:30 | And now, when I create a brand-new
document inside of Illustrator, I'm just
| | 05:33 | going to press Command+N to create a
new document, where it says New Document
| | 05:37 | Profile, I'm going to click on this pop-up
and I'll see that in addition to my
| | 05:41 | Print, Web, Mobile Devices, so on and so forth;
| | 05:44 | I now have an entry called Hansel & Petal.
| | 05:47 | When I choose that and click OK,
you'll notice that the swatches in this
| | 05:51 | document are just the ones that I've specified.
| | 05:54 | In other words, I was able to now
create my own new document profile or my own
| | 05:59 | new parent or master file in which
I can now create new documents from.
| | 06:04 | Notice it's called now Untitled-10,
because it's always going to be an untitled
| | 06:08 | document, but it's simply copying all
the information out of that Hansel & Petal
| | 06:12 | file that I created and saved into
the New Document Profiles folder.
| | 06:17 | If you want to start off a document that
already has all the swatches and colors
| | 06:20 | that you need for a certain project, go
ahead and create a new document profile,
| | 06:24 | specifically for those projects.
| | 06:26 | And again, if you have many different
clients, or you are working with different
| | 06:30 | seasons or different types of projects
at a single company, you can create as
| | 06:34 | many of these new document profiles as you need.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting limits on the Color Guide| 00:00 | So we know that the Color Guide panel
provides suggestions of colors that I can
| | 00:04 | use based on a base color,
meaning a color that I choose.
| | 00:08 | In addition, it makes these
suggestions of colors based on the harmony rule
| | 00:12 | that I've selected.
| | 00:14 | So, for example, when I click on
different colors here inside of my Swatches
| | 00:17 | panel, I'll see different variations
of color that I might want to use in my
| | 00:21 | design, but here is really
where the problem kind of starts.
| | 00:25 | Where is the Color Guide
getting all these colors from?
| | 00:28 | I mean it's making suggestions of
different shades of colors, it's using the
| | 00:32 | harmonies that I've chosen in order
to come up with those colors, but those
| | 00:36 | colors are all being fed from the
HSV color wheel that exists inside of
| | 00:40 | Illustrator, meaning Color Guide is
accessing this whole world of visible
| | 00:45 | color and it's making suggestions based on
colors that it finds in that big world of color.
| | 00:51 | But let's stop for a moment and think
about how we as designers use color on
| | 00:56 | a day-to-day basis.
| | 00:57 | We're not always free to
choose any color that we dream up;
| | 01:01 | we usually work within some kind of
constraints or some kind of set area of color.
| | 01:05 | For example, a web designer may want to
choose colors that are always going to be web safe.
| | 01:11 | So they want to choose colors from
within that palette of 216 web safe colors.
| | 01:16 | If you're an apparel designer, you may
have to choose colors that have already
| | 01:20 | been approved by your company, or that
have been chosen by the fashion designers
| | 01:25 | in Paris of that year.
| | 01:27 | If you work at a corporation, you may
have a set palette of colors that have
| | 01:31 | been approved by your corporation.
| | 01:33 | So, more often than not as designers, we
can't just choose colors from anywhere;
| | 01:39 | what would be really great is if the
Color Guide can actually provide colors to
| | 01:43 | us from a list of approved colors.
| | 01:46 | If I am working in a spot color job
and I know that I want to work with the
| | 01:50 | Pantone color, it would really be nice
if the Color Guide would suggest Pantone
| | 01:54 | colors that I might want to work with.
| | 01:56 | So I find that many designers at first
glance of the Color Guide panel quickly
| | 02:01 | dismiss it, because it's offering
colors that they know that they can't use.
| | 02:06 | However, I want to let you on
a little bit of a secret here.
| | 02:09 | In fact, what I'm about to show you
is probably the most important thing to
| | 02:14 | know about how color works inside of
Illustrator in this new realm of these automated tools.
| | 02:19 | Yes, I know that I can create these
groups of colors which help me describes
| | 02:23 | Illustrator how I want to use these
colors, but what I can also do is I can set
| | 02:28 | limits inside of Illustrator to
force Illustrator to work within a very
| | 02:32 | specific range of color.
| | 02:34 | The way that you do that is by focusing
on this little icon here that appears at
| | 02:38 | the bottom left-hand
corner of the Color Guide panel.
| | 02:41 | This button here allows you to
limit the color group to colors within a
| | 02:45 | certain swatch library.
| | 02:46 | In other words, limiting the Color
Guide panel allows you to control the
| | 02:51 | colors that it can use.
| | 02:53 | Now if I click on this
button, it looks quite familiar.
| | 02:56 | I see things, for example,
like my Color Book libraries.
| | 02:59 | If I scroll down here to the
bottom, I've actually defined my own
| | 03:03 | HANSEL_CORPORATE Library colors.
| | 03:04 | So, these are simply libraries of
colors that I was seeing when I actually
| | 03:09 | went to the Swatches panel here at
the bottom and pull down my own custom
| | 03:13 | palettes from here.
| | 03:14 | The difference is that within the
Color Guide by choosing a panel here or by
| | 03:19 | choosing to actually load a swatch
library, I am a feeding the Color Guide
| | 03:24 | those specific colors that already
exist in that library, and by doing so, I am
| | 03:30 | limiting the Color Guide to only choose colors
that are already within that library of color.
| | 03:36 | The reason why I say this is so
important is because as we're going to find out,
| | 03:40 | as we continue to go through this course,
this particular setting is available
| | 03:45 | on other areas inside of Illustrator as well.
| | 03:47 | And it gives us tremendous amount of
power to have Illustrator assist us in
| | 03:52 | working with color so that Illustrator
already knows which colors I am approved to use.
| | 03:57 | Let's see how that works
here inside the Color Guide.
| | 04:00 | I'm actually going to start by
changing my Harmony to a basic one
| | 04:03 | like Complementary.
| | 04:04 | Now I'm just going to have two colors to
work with plus variations of those two colors.
| | 04:09 | Next, I'll come down to this icon here,
and I'll click on it and let's start
| | 04:14 | with something basic.
| | 04:15 | For example, let's say I'm a web designer
and I want to work within Web safe colors.
| | 04:20 | I'm going to scroll down this list
here to the bottom, and I've here my Web
| | 04:23 | swatch library and when I choose that,
notice that the word Web appears right here.
| | 04:28 | This means that right now the Color
Guide panel is limited in only being able to
| | 04:33 | choose colors that already exist
inside of the Web Safe color palette.
| | 04:37 | So now when I choose on different
colors, even if these colors are not
| | 04:41 | necessarily Web safe colors, the
colors that I see appearing now inside the
| | 04:45 | Color Guide are all Web safe colors
because I've limited the Color Guide to work
| | 04:50 | within that palette, so those are the
only colors that can be suggested to me.
| | 04:55 | Another way to think about this is that
if I click, for example, on yellow right
| | 04:59 | over here, you may not have completely
understood why I see my base color here,
| | 05:04 | but I also see my base color right here as well.
| | 05:07 | The answer is that, this is my base color,
meaning the color that I've chosen in
| | 05:10 | my Swatches panel, but the color that
I see right here is its closest match
| | 05:16 | based on the colors that now
exist inside of my Color Guide.
| | 05:19 | To better understand that concept,
let's limit the Color Guide to a
| | 05:23 | different palette of color.
| | 05:24 | I'm going to go to this button right
over here, and now let's go to Color Books
| | 05:28 | and choose PANTONE solid coated.
| | 05:31 | What I'm doing now is I'm actually
feeding the entire library of PANTONE solid
| | 05:36 | coated colors into the Color Guide;
| | 05:39 | meaning that now the Color Guide is
only allowed to suggest colors that are
| | 05:43 | within this library of color.
| | 05:45 | So I'll click on this option right here
and notice now that as I choose a color,
| | 05:49 | for example, this is my base color, but
this right now is the closest match to
| | 05:55 | my base color that falls within the
colors that the Color Guide is allowed to
| | 05:59 | use, which in this case, are PANTONE colors.
| | 06:02 | So if I've ever wanted to identify a
closest match to the color that I'm working
| | 06:06 | within my document, this
is a great way to do it.
| | 06:09 | First, limit my Color Guide to a
specific library of color and then click on a
| | 06:14 | color and I will see that the first
color that appears is my color's closest
| | 06:18 | match in that library.
| | 06:20 | I can now take this color, remember
the first color that appears here is the
| | 06:24 | first color that appears directly here
underneath this arrow in the center and I
| | 06:29 | can take that swatch and drag it into
my Swatches panel, and now Pantone 362 is
| | 06:35 | the closest match to this swatch right here.
| | 06:39 | You'll also notice that every color
that's being suggested by the Color Guide
| | 06:42 | are all Pantone spot colors.
| | 06:45 | That's because I've limited the Color
Guide to work within that range of color.
| | 06:49 | Let's go a step further now.
| | 06:51 | We've already defined our own custom
library earlier on inside of this video title.
| | 06:56 | So if I click on this button right
over here and I scroll down to the bottom,
| | 06:59 | where I've User Defined libraries, I can
load my Hansel & Petal corporate colors
| | 07:04 | directly into the Color Guide.
| | 07:06 | Now whenever I click on any color here,
the only colors that are being suggested
| | 07:11 | are colors that exist inside the
Hansel & Petal corporate library.
| | 07:15 | Now the Color Guide suddenly makes
a lot of sense to me as a designer.
| | 07:19 | It's not just recommending any arbitrary
color from the entire visible color spectrum;
| | 07:24 | no, not at all.
| | 07:26 | What I've done now is I've limited the
Color Guide to now only use colors that
| | 07:30 | I'm approved to use.
| | 07:31 | So if I am a fashion designer, I may
load, for example, my Spring 2013 library
| | 07:38 | into the Color Guide.
| | 07:39 | Now when I choose any color, the
nearest match and any other colors that work
| | 07:44 | well with that color will now appear
inside of the Color Guide, and any color
| | 07:48 | that it suggests are actually
colors that I'm approved to use.
| | 07:52 | So we can readily see how powerful this one
little button can be inside of Color Guide.
| | 07:57 | In fact, it suddenly makes Color Guide
relevant not just to certain types of
| | 08:03 | designers, but to any kind of
designer out there that has to use anything
| | 08:06 | within the world of color, because you can now
control it to work within your world of color.
| | 08:12 | As I said before, this little
feature is available in other areas of
| | 08:16 | Illustrator as well.
| | 08:18 | As we continue to learn more about
how color works inside of Illustrator,
| | 08:21 | we'll find that not only will
Illustrator make life easy for us by making
| | 08:25 | automatic changes for us in the area
of color, by forcing it to work within a
| | 08:29 | realm of color that we are approved to use,
that feature will become even more important to us.
| | 08:35 | Now point out one really important
thing to note about this specific feature.
| | 08:39 | Notice that when I go to the Swatches
panel, I can click on this button and I
| | 08:43 | can choose to load some of the color
palettes that come with Illustrator, or
| | 08:48 | I can actually choose my own in this
User Defined area, but if I have another
| | 08:51 | palette that exists somewhere on my
hard drive or on a server somewhere, I
| | 08:55 | can choose Other Library and navigate to that
file, and load those colors into Illustrator.
| | 09:00 | However, when dealing with the Color
Guide, I can click on this button, I can
| | 09:05 | scroll down to the bottom here where
it says, User Defined, but I have no way
| | 09:08 | to choose Other Library, meaning, if
there's a library of color that exists on
| | 09:13 | a server somewhere, I have no way to actually
load that library of color into the Color Guide.
| | 09:19 | The only way for me to do so is to
actually keep it stored inside of the same
| | 09:24 | folder where this HANSEL_CORPORATE Library is.
| | 09:27 | So you may want to go back to Chapter
3, Color Organization and revisit the
| | 09:32 | movie called, Creating and managing your
own color libraries to learn more about
| | 09:37 | making sure that your libraries
are inside of the right folder.
| | 09:40 | If they are, you'll be able to
load them into the Color Guide.
| | 09:44 | There is one other way around that;
| | 09:46 | meaning if you have some kind of a
custom library, but that file itself is not
| | 09:51 | located inside of your user folder, so
that it shows up into this area or this
| | 09:54 | folder called User Defined, what you can
do is you can simply go to the Swatches
| | 09:59 | panel, choose Other Library and load
that library into Illustrator and then
| | 10:04 | manually drag all those
colors into your Swatches panel.
| | 10:08 | You probably would want to delete
all of your existing colors first.
| | 10:11 | But now since all of your colors live
inside of your Swatches panel what you
| | 10:16 | could do is go to this little button
here and choose to limit the Color Guide
| | 10:20 | to only work within colors that are found
inside of the swatches that exist in this document.
| | 10:27 | By choosing this option, you are
limiting the Color Guide to only work with
| | 10:31 | colors that are available inside
of the documents of Swatches panel.
| | 10:35 | So keeping that in mind, you may want to
revisit and go back and actually create
| | 10:39 | custom libraries for the
colors that you might want to use.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
| 4. Color Exploration |
5. Color ManipulationEditing color groups with the color wheel| 00:00 | Back in chapter 3 we spoke about how
important it was for us to actually
| | 00:05 | organize our colors using Swatch Groups
or what we saw as those little folders
| | 00:11 | inside of the Swatches panel.
| | 00:13 | In this chapter, and moving forward
throughout the title, we're going to start
| | 00:17 | to see the fruits of our labor.
| | 00:18 | It may have taken us a few extra steps
to create those groups, but in doing so,
| | 00:23 | we'll be able to take advantage of
more functionality inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:27 | Let's start with a simple
concept of just simply editing colors.
| | 00:31 | I am going to start by
creating a new document here;
| | 00:34 | Command+N or Ctrl+N to create a new document.
| | 00:37 | I am going to leave my setting here set
to the Print, New Document Profile, and
| | 00:41 | I am going to click OK.
| | 00:42 | Now in this profile, if you look at my
Swatches panel, I have several swatches
| | 00:47 | that are now loose inside of the
Swatches panel and if I scroll down I see that
| | 00:51 | I have two Color Groups here;
| | 00:52 | one called Grays and one called Brights.
| | 00:56 | Normally, you know that you can just
simply double-click at any swatch inside of
| | 00:59 | Illustrator to edit that swatch.
| | 01:02 | So, for example, if I come over here
to even a color within a group like this
| | 01:05 | yellow color right here, I can double-click
on it, and the Swatch Options
| | 01:09 | dialog box shows up.
| | 01:11 | This is very familiar to us.
| | 01:13 | We know that we have the
sliders here on the bottom.
| | 01:15 | We can choose CMYK, HSB so on and so forth.
| | 01:20 | I will click OK to just
leave the settings as they were.
| | 01:22 | However, when I'm working
specifically with a Swatch Group, I can also
| | 01:27 | double-click on the Folder icon
itself here inside of the Swatches panel.
| | 01:32 | When I do so, I don't get a
single Swatch Options dialog box;
| | 01:36 | instead I get this other large dialog box
which is called the Edit Colors dialog box.
| | 01:42 | Now as you can see, just by looking
at it, there is a tremendous amount of
| | 01:45 | functionality that's here and what I'd
like to do is break it down to several
| | 01:49 | different sections so we can focus on them.
| | 01:52 | First of all the entire right side of
this dialog box is optional, and you can
| | 01:57 | actually hide it by
clicking on this button right here.
| | 02:00 | It's a way for us to store or display
our Color Groups inside of our document.
| | 02:05 | Before I actually close it here,
because I don't want to make the screen too
| | 02:08 | complicated to look at, I just want
you to take note that right now where it
| | 02:12 | says Color Groups I only see
colors that appear inside of groups.
| | 02:17 | Even though I have a tremendous amount
of swatches inside of this document, none
| | 02:21 | of those swatches are actually
visible inside of this dialog box.
| | 02:25 | So we discussed before again how
important it is for us to organize our color
| | 02:30 | inside of groups and this is one
example of why that's the case.
| | 02:34 | If I don't put my colors inside of groups,
I don't have access to them, at least
| | 02:38 | not easily here inside of
the Edit Colors dialog box.
| | 02:42 | For now though I am just going to click
on this button to hide this part of the
| | 02:45 | dialog and let's focus
purely on this section right now.
| | 02:50 | Now obviously, front and center in the
middle, I have my Color Wheel and we have
| | 02:53 | already discussed this
concept of an HSB Color Wheel.
| | 02:56 | We discussed it way back in this title
in Chapter 1 when we spoke about core
| | 03:00 | color concepts, and we also saw this Color
Wheel when we were using the Kuler web site.
| | 03:04 | We'll talk more about this Color
Wheel in detail in just a moment.
| | 03:09 | But directly beneath it I have
these sliders that right now are set to
| | 03:13 | Saturation, Brightness, Temperature,
and Luminosity, and that's because I have
| | 03:17 | a little button here.
| | 03:18 | If I click on this, I'll actually see
that I have RGB, HSB, CMYK, Web RGB which
| | 03:25 | is Web Safe RGB, Tints which are not
available right now because I'm not dealing
| | 03:28 | with Spot Colors, and
then I have Lab here as well.
| | 03:32 | Now, we saw those little pop-ups in
those sliders when we were editing
| | 03:35 | individual swatches using
the Swatch Options dialog box.
| | 03:39 | But what I have here in addition
is something called Global Adjust.
| | 03:42 | We'll come back to this in just a
moment, but I just want to show you we are
| | 03:45 | inside of the CMYK document,
and these colors are CMYK colors.
| | 03:49 | If I switch this to now Show CMYK, what I
get here at the bottom are my CMYK sliders.
| | 03:55 | Again, similar to what I'd see inside
of the Swatch Options dialog box or of
| | 04:00 | course very similar to what I might
actually see here inside of my Color panel.
| | 04:05 | Now there is another little button
right over here on the right side, and you
| | 04:08 | might find this somewhat familiar.
| | 04:10 | It's actually the Limit button that we
started using inside of the Color Guide panel.
| | 04:15 | That allows us to limit the colors that we
can use based on the library of our choosing.
| | 04:21 | Well, we're going to table this for now.
| | 04:23 | We don't want to really go there
because we're going to find out that that is
| | 04:26 | extremely useful, but a little bit more complex.
| | 04:28 | We'll get to that in just a few movies.
| | 04:30 | For now, let's focus on the Color
Wheel that appears right over here.
| | 04:34 | What exactly are we looking at?
| | 04:36 | Well, we know that the Color Wheel
itself gives us all the colors inside of this
| | 04:40 | gamut, which we know right now is HSB.
| | 04:44 | Now, in order to open up this dialog
box I started by double-clicking on the
| | 04:48 | Folder for this Brights group
here inside of my Swatches panel.
| | 04:53 | So what I'm seeing is little circles
here around the wheel itself that represent
| | 04:58 | each of the colors that
appear inside of that Swatch Group.
| | 05:02 | Now one of these colors right now is a
little bit bigger, you can see that this
| | 05:06 | circle is bigger, and that simply
indicates that, that is the first color inside
| | 05:09 | of the group, it can also be
referred to as our base color.
| | 05:13 | However, in truth, there really isn't
any significance of that color right now.
| | 05:17 | To better understand exactly what
Illustrator is displaying to us here let
| | 05:21 | me provide an analogy.
| | 05:23 | If you're looking for a certain
address, you can go to Google Maps and do a
| | 05:26 | search for that address, and also maybe
you find other points of interest that
| | 05:31 | are near that address.
| | 05:32 | When you perform such a search inside
of Google Maps, you see these little
| | 05:36 | pushpins or indicators that identify where
those points of interests are on top of a map.
| | 05:43 | Let's imagine for a minute right now
that this Color Wheel is a map, it's a map
| | 05:47 | of all the colors, and the little
circles that I see are the pushpins or the
| | 05:52 | dots that are identifying these
points of interests on that world of color.
| | 05:57 | The points of interests here are the actual
Swatch Colors that appear inside of my group.
| | 06:02 | So what the dots here are representing
are the actual location of where each of
| | 06:07 | the colors that live inside of my
Swatch Group appear on the overall world of
| | 06:12 | color represented here as the HSB Color Wheel.
| | 06:16 | Because I've put all these colors
together inside of a group that means that
| | 06:20 | there is some kind of
relationship between those colors.
| | 06:23 | If you want to think about it,
it's as if I've created my own
| | 06:26 | customized harmony.
| | 06:28 | So right now all the colors are
connected to each other with these solid lines.
| | 06:33 | That means that if I were to actually
move one of those colors as I'll do right
| | 06:37 | here, you'll see that all
the colors move together.
| | 06:41 | This is similar to what we
saw again inside of Kuler.
| | 06:44 | I was able to make an adjustment to one color,
and all the other colors moved accordingly.
| | 06:50 | This is a way for you to make a global
adjustment to all the colors inside of
| | 06:53 | you Swatch Group at once.
| | 06:55 | However, I'll be honest with you.
| | 06:57 | I'll tell you that I don't really
find that much of a use for this kind of
| | 06:59 | adjustment, at least not when I am editing
the colors inside of a Swatch Group itself.
| | 07:05 | I am actually going to click on this
icon right over here to expand this
| | 07:08 | area and I am going to click on the
Brights again to reload those colors
| | 07:12 | back onto the Color Wheel.
| | 07:13 | It's important to realize that when
you're working here inside of the Edit
| | 07:17 | Colors dialog box, there is no Undo button.
| | 07:20 | So whenever you make a change, the
only way out of it is to either cancel or
| | 07:24 | to reload those colors again and I'm doing
so by clicking on the Color Group right here.
| | 07:29 | Let me close this area again.
| | 07:31 | Let's talk about making a
different kind of color change to a color.
| | 07:35 | You see right now all of my colors
are linked to each other because they're
| | 07:38 | inside of this harmony.
| | 07:39 | However, I may decide just to change
that red color, maybe I want to make
| | 07:42 | some kind of adjustment.
| | 07:43 | I want all the other colors to stay the
same, but I want to make some kind of a
| | 07:47 | change to just the red color.
| | 07:49 | So what I will start off by doing is
coming over here to the icon that has a
| | 07:53 | little Lock icon on it, and I'll
choose to click on it, and now I've
| | 07:56 | unlinked the colors.
| | 07:57 | Now, you can see that I have
dotted lines that connect all these
| | 08:01 | different colors here.
| | 08:02 | Now, I can move each of
these colors individually.
| | 08:05 | Notice when I do so, I am
actually seeing the sliders move.
| | 08:08 | I could also move the
sliders to adjust colors this way.
| | 08:11 | Of course I can always change to a
different method, if I don't want to use
| | 08:15 | CMYK, I can choose to go to HSB, for
example, and notice of course if I drag on
| | 08:21 | the H slider or the Hue slider, I
am going to move in a clockwise or
| | 08:24 | counterclockwise direction.
| | 08:27 | Maybe I want to add some saturation
here, so I could also drag this as well.
| | 08:30 | Notice it moves towards
the outside of the circle.
| | 08:34 | Now, if I want to change this color to
a completely different color, and I know
| | 08:38 | what that color is, so, for example,
right now I have six colors inside of this
| | 08:41 | Color Group, and I really want this
red color to be a completely different
| | 08:45 | color, what I could do is I
can simply double-click on it.
| | 08:48 | That brings up the Color Picker.
| | 08:50 | I can either choose a color here or
if I know that I already have a Color
| | 08:54 | Swatch that exist inside of my document,
I can click on Color Swatches, maybe
| | 08:58 | choose CMYK Blue, and click OK and
notice now the red has completely been
| | 09:02 | changed to the blue color.
| | 09:04 | If I click on the OK button right now,
Illustrator will ask me if I now want to
| | 09:08 | save that change to this Color Group.
| | 09:11 | Again, before the Brights Color Group
had a swatch which was red, but now I've
| | 09:16 | just changed that red to a blue swatch,
so Illustrator wants to make sure that I
| | 09:20 | want to approve that change.
| | 09:22 | So if I click Yes, you can now see that
my Color Group has the blue color here
| | 09:26 | instead of the red color.
| | 09:28 | So we can see that when working with
Color Groups, by double-clicking on the
| | 09:32 | Folder icon itself, I get the Edit
Colors dialog box, and I can actually edit
| | 09:37 | several colors at once.
| | 09:39 | Also, I can edit them in the
context of my overall Color Group.
| | 09:42 | I will just show you one other
thing which is interesting about that
| | 09:45 | particular dialog box.
| | 09:46 | Once again I will double-click on
the Folder icon to bring up the Edit
| | 09:49 | Colors dialog here.
| | 09:51 | I can display this Color Wheel either
as Smooth Colors, or I could choose to
| | 09:55 | view as Segmented Color Wheel.
| | 09:57 | Again, some designers may find this a
little bit easier to work with, or I could
| | 10:01 | simply show or display all of the
colors inside of my Color Group as a
| | 10:05 | collection of Color Bars.
| | 10:08 | Now, I am going to go back to the
Smooth Color Wheel here for just a moment,
| | 10:11 | because there maybe times when another
kind of edit that I might want to apply
| | 10:15 | to a Color Group is to actually add or
remove a color from that Color Group.
| | 10:20 | Now again, I know that I can actually
go to the Swatches panel, and drag an
| | 10:24 | existing swatch into a group or drag it
out of a group, but again this is just
| | 10:29 | another way to offer that kind of functionality.
| | 10:31 | I could simply right-click anywhere
inside of the Color Wheel itself and
| | 10:35 | choose to add a new color.
| | 10:37 | So before, I had six colors inside of
my Color Group, and now I have seven.
| | 10:41 | Likewise, if I want to delete a color,
I can click on this icon right here, and
| | 10:45 | then click on that color
to remove it from the group.
| | 10:48 | All the way at the top of this dialog
box you will see a little pop-up menu
| | 10:52 | which is similar to what we
saw inside of the Color Guide.
| | 10:55 | I can actually choose
between different color harmonies.
| | 10:58 | At the moment, the way that I got into
this dialog box is by double-clicking on
| | 11:02 | the folder of an existing Swatch Group.
| | 11:05 | So the colors that were in that Swatch
Group which is my own custom harmony,
| | 11:10 | those colors were loaded
into the Edit Colors dialog box.
| | 11:13 | So those are the colors
that I see on the Color Wheel.
| | 11:16 | However, if you really want to get a
good idea about what all these different
| | 11:20 | harmony rules actually are and what
they represent, you could simply come here
| | 11:24 | and actually click on these.
| | 11:25 | So, for example, if I click on
Complementary, I now see the two colors and the
| | 11:30 | way that these colors are actually
appearing in relationship to each other.
| | 11:34 | I have one color which is my base color,
and then I also have its complement.
| | 11:39 | If I click over here again and I choose,
for example, Monochromatic 2, I see how
| | 11:43 | these colors appear on the Color Wheel.
| | 11:45 | Let me scroll all the way down
towards the bottom here and choose High
| | 11:48 | Contrast colors, and again I see how
that's split up, and how that's displayed
| | 11:52 | on the Color Wheel itself.
| | 11:54 | So in this regard, I have the ability
to either edit existing colors that are
| | 11:58 | inside of Color Groups, and I could
also take a look at how each of these
| | 12:01 | harmonies that Illustrator
comes with go about choosing colors.
| | 12:06 | So we know that the Edit Colors dialog
box offers me a very rich environment for
| | 12:11 | editing the colors that appear inside of groups.
| | 12:14 | You'll notice, by the way, that there
are two little buttons here at the top,
| | 12:17 | one called Edit which is what we've been
looking at right now, and then there is
| | 12:20 | something called Assign, but
this right now is grayed out.
| | 12:24 | The reason why that icon right now is
grayed out is because we don't have any
| | 12:28 | artwork on our artboard selected.
| | 12:30 | You see the Assign part of this dialog
box allows us to recolor existing artwork.
| | 12:35 | Right now, we've just been
working purely with swatches;
| | 12:38 | we haven't been touching artwork at all.
| | 12:40 | But in the next movie, we're going to
learn all about how we can actually start
| | 12:43 | to wrap our heads around this concept
of actually changing colors inside of
| | 12:48 | artwork in a whole new way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Breaking down the Recolor Artwork feature| 00:00 | In the previous movie, we have seen
an example where we can take a group of
| | 00:04 | colors and edit those colors as a single
unit, using the Edit Colors dialog box.
| | 00:10 | We also saw that there was another side
to that dialog box called Assigned Colors.
| | 00:15 | In this movie we are going to take a
closer look at that functionality, again
| | 00:19 | before, we're talking about
changing the colors inside of a group;
| | 00:23 | specifically colors inside of a Swatch group.
| | 00:26 | However, what happens when you want
to make changes to colors that already
| | 00:30 | appear inside of artwork in your document?
| | 00:33 | That's where the Recolor
Artwork come in and comes into Play.
| | 00:37 | Now in this movie I want to focus purely
on the concepts of what Recolor Artwork
| | 00:42 | does inside of illustrator.
| | 00:44 | Then we'll use the Recolor Artwork
feature throughout the rest of this title in
| | 00:49 | a variety of different examples and workflows.
| | 00:52 | Here is the first rule in using the
Recolor Artwork feature inside of illustrator.
| | 00:57 | You have to make a selection, you see
as we are going to find out, the Recolor
| | 01:01 | Artwork feature allows to take existing
artwork and make changes to that artwork
| | 01:06 | but the changes that will happen will
only happen to artwork that is selected.
| | 01:12 | This is key to understand because we
will be able to make precise changes
| | 01:16 | throughout an entire document but only
where we want these changes to take place.
| | 01:21 | Keep this in mind if you're
working with artwork that has several
| | 01:24 | elements locked or hidden.
| | 01:26 | You want to make sure to
unlock those before we get started.
| | 01:29 | I am ready to make my selection.
| | 01:31 | Let's say right now that I want to
make some changes or adjustments to the
| | 01:35 | artwork that appears here on the far left.
| | 01:37 | I don't want to touch these two designs,
so I am simply going to select just
| | 01:40 | this one design right here.
| | 01:42 | There are really two ways to actually
access this Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 01:47 | One way is to go to the Edit menu, to choose
Edit Colors and then choose Recolor Artwork.
| | 01:53 | Another way is that whenever you have
any artwork selected on your Artboard,
| | 01:57 | you'll see a little color chip wheel
that appears inside of your control panel,
| | 02:02 | as when you mouse over it, it
kind of lights up and turns colorful.
| | 02:05 | I am actually going to click on
that button and that will open up my
| | 02:08 | Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 02:10 | I am going to leave it right about
over here and at first glance, it
| | 02:13 | looks incredibly complex.
| | 02:15 | So in this movie here, I really want
to talk about what all these different
| | 02:18 | elements and parts do inside of this dialog box.
| | 02:24 | As we saw before when we were
editing colors this area over here is our
| | 02:28 | storage area that shows us all the Swatch
groups that we have to find inside of this document.
| | 02:34 | Now in this document I don't have
any regular swatches, but I have global
| | 02:37 | swatches that appear inside of three
different groups and I can see those three
| | 02:41 | different groups right here.
| | 02:43 | I can even click on the twirl down
arrows to view each of the color swatches
| | 02:46 | that appear inside of those color groups.
| | 02:49 | Now later on inside of this title we'll
see how these buttons at the top here,
| | 02:54 | help us actually create or modify the
color groups inside of our document.
| | 02:59 | We'll find this can be very,
very helpful as we are working.
| | 03:02 | Now the top part of the document is
again where we saw harmonies before but we
| | 03:07 | are not working with any of this
specific harmony rules that Illustrator has,
| | 03:10 | meaning Complimentary colors or Left
Complement and when not working with colors
| | 03:14 | that live necessarily inside of our
group, we are actually working with the
| | 03:17 | colors that live inside of this artwork.
| | 03:19 | So you can see over here that
illustrator is letting me know that I am currently
| | 03:22 | displaying the colors that appear
inside of the artwork or my artwork colors.
| | 03:27 | As we are working throughout our
process here inside of the Recolor Artwork
| | 03:30 | dialog box, there isn't an undo button,
that means if I start to make some
| | 03:35 | changes and I realize I want to step
back one or two steps, I unfortunately
| | 03:38 | have no way to do that.
| | 03:39 | I can either click on the Cancel
button to kind of start over again, or I can
| | 03:44 | come to this button over here which
is called Get colors from selected art.
| | 03:48 | If I click on this illustrator reloads
the original colors from the artwork into
| | 03:53 | this dialog box, it is if I just
launch this dialog box from scratch.
| | 03:58 | So as we are working that button there
is going to be the closest we can get to
| | 04:02 | some kind of an undo function.
| | 04:03 | Now you will notice that because we
had artwork selected when we open up this
| | 04:08 | dialog box, we now see the section
over here in the middle which is currently
| | 04:12 | set to the assigned button this was
grayed out before when we were editing the
| | 04:16 | colors in a Swatch group, because
there is no way to assign other colors to
| | 04:20 | swatches that live inside of a group.
| | 04:23 | This allows us now to assign
colors to different artwork.
| | 04:26 | Now if we click on the Edit button
here for a moment, we see that color wheel
| | 04:30 | which has now become familiar to us
and we see the little dots that appear on
| | 04:34 | that color wheel and we've already
established that right now, those dots
| | 04:38 | represent the colors that are in my artwork.
| | 04:40 | So right now any color that is used in
my artwork is being displayed to me where
| | 04:45 | they live on this color wheel.
| | 04:48 | If I wanted to make adjustments to one
of these colors, I can do so here just by
| | 04:52 | dragging one of those dots around.
| | 04:54 | However, if I am in the assigned
part of this dialog box I see a very
| | 04:58 | different view of my colors, they're
the same colors, I am just viewing them
| | 05:02 | in a different fashion.
| | 05:04 | Illustrator provides a list of all the
colors that currently appear inside of my
| | 05:08 | artwork, right now there are seven colors.
| | 05:10 | And Illustrator also
gives me a list of new colors;
| | 05:13 | these are the colors that my
artwork is now going to turn into.
| | 05:16 | Now don't worry about the specifics of
each of these different color bars here
| | 05:20 | they're actually quite
complex within themselves.
| | 05:22 | We are going to talk about them in
detail in the next movie, but for now just
| | 05:26 | know this the way for your
Illustrator to allow me to view the colors that
| | 05:30 | currently exist in my document and it
gives me some kind of a method where I can
| | 05:34 | indicate to Illustrator, what I
want those colors to turn into.
| | 05:38 | There are some icons that appear
across the bottom of this as well and again
| | 05:42 | we'll discuss that in the future movie,
but for now I want to get one point
| | 05:45 | across here, the real benefit or the
real power that we need to appreciate about
| | 05:50 | what Recolor Artwork does for us is it
allows us to kind of separate the color
| | 05:56 | from the artwork itself so that we
can work and focus on that color.
| | 06:01 | Let me explain what I mean by that,
in another title here at the lynda.com
| | 06:05 | online training library, something
called Illustrator insider training
| | 06:09 | rethinking the essentials.
| | 06:10 | I spoke about a concept inside of
Illustrator where we were kind of separating
| | 06:14 | the underlying vectors instead of our
artwork from the actual presentation or
| | 06:19 | appearance of our artwork.
| | 06:21 | On a similar level and Recolor Artwork
allows us to do the same thing, you know
| | 06:26 | inside of illustrator we have these
things like fills and stroke attributes or
| | 06:29 | for dealing with things like
symbols or gradients or patterns.
| | 06:34 | There may be colors used in all
different kinds of fashions within those
| | 06:37 | kinds of attributes.
| | 06:39 | Unfortunately in order for us to
make those kinds of changes to colors if
| | 06:43 | we're working directly on the Artboard
we always need to have just one fill in
| | 06:47 | our focus or one stroke in our focus
meaning if I wanted to change a color and
| | 06:52 | that color is used both in a fill and a
stroke, I would have to make those two
| | 06:56 | changes separately.
| | 06:58 | However, what I'm doing here inside
of Recolor Artwork is I am kind of
| | 07:01 | extracting the color
information added that artwork.
| | 07:04 | I don't really care about paths anymore,
I don't care about fills or strokes,
| | 07:08 | all I care about is a specific
color and I can tell Illustrator;
| | 07:13 | you see this one color of here, no
matter where it's used, whether that be
| | 07:16 | inside of a gradient mesh, as a single
gradient stop inside of a gradient, as a
| | 07:21 | single element inside of a symbol or
pattern or even as a fill or a stroke
| | 07:26 | attribute, I am telling Illustrator I
want to do something to that one color and
| | 07:31 | that's why it's so important
to understand this concept.
| | 07:33 | Notice that I have selected the entire
piece of artwork, I have text in here, I
| | 07:38 | have all the different elements
of the flower in the background.
| | 07:41 | I may only want to make a change to
one or two of those colors in their.
| | 07:44 | I don't have to worry about only
selecting the objects that contain the colors
| | 07:47 | that I want to change.
| | 07:49 | I can select everything but tell Illustrator
to ignore certain colors, but to change others.
| | 07:55 | Again, this allows me to focus purely
on their color and not on the objects
| | 08:00 | themselves, that's the true power of what
Recolor Artwork does for us inside of Illustrator.
| | 08:07 | Now that we understand that, in the next
movie we are going to dive specifically
| | 08:11 | into the functionality of these areas
here which I have called color rose.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding what color rows represent| 00:00 | So we're starting to understand what
this Recolor Artwork feature is supposed to
| | 00:04 | do for us inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:06 | In the previous movie, we learned that
we have to actually select artwork first
| | 00:11 | in order to make changes to
the colors in that artwork.
| | 00:14 | So let's do that quickly here.
| | 00:16 | I'm working in this file called recolor.ai.
| | 00:18 | I am going to select this piece of
artwork on the left side right here, and
| | 00:22 | then, in the Control panel, I am going
to click on this little color-chip wheel
| | 00:25 | right here to open up the
Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 00:29 | Now again, because I had Artwork
selected, Illustrator automatically brought me
| | 00:34 | to the Assign part of this dialog box.
| | 00:37 | In this movie, I want to focus
on just this area right here.
| | 00:41 | These are things which we call Color Rows.
| | 00:43 | When we say Color Row I am not
referring to the things that are here which are
| | 00:47 | columns, I am talking about each item
over here, and let's understand exactly
| | 00:51 | what's represented here.
| | 00:52 | Again, here on the left side where I
have these wide bars, these refer to the
| | 00:57 | Current Colors in my selection.
| | 01:00 | Obviously, they don't refer to all the
colors in my document because we're only
| | 01:04 | dealing here with the colors that appear
inside of the artwork that I've already selected.
| | 01:08 | On the far right side here, we have
what these colors are now going to become.
| | 01:12 | These are the new colors.
| | 01:14 | In fact, when we look at each individual
row here, or each individual color row,
| | 01:19 | we kind of read it almost
like a mathematical equation.
| | 01:22 | Let's take it one step at a time.
| | 01:25 | This color which currently appears
inside of my artwork will change into, the
| | 01:30 | Arrow means that it's now
going to become this new color.
| | 01:34 | Now, notice over here that this color
box is split into two sections here.
| | 01:38 | The top part over here refers to what
my new color is going to be, the bottom
| | 01:42 | part refers to how Illustrator was
going to actually make that change.
| | 01:47 | It's something which we refer
to as a colorization method.
| | 01:51 | That's actually something that we're
going to be talking about in the next
| | 01:54 | chapter when we talk about color modification.
| | 01:56 | But for now, let's just understand
exactly how this mathematical equation is
| | 02:01 | going to be read here inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:03 | This one color in my document is going
to change into this new color using a
| | 02:10 | certain colorization method.
| | 02:12 | Here's the thing about right now
working with the Recolor Artwork feature
| | 02:15 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:16 | If I select some artwork, and then I
open up the Recolor Artwork dialog box,
| | 02:21 | Illustrator doesn't know yet which
colors I want to change my artwork into.
| | 02:26 | So by default, each color
gets remapped back to itself.
| | 02:31 | So that's why what we see right now are
my original color in my artwork is now
| | 02:36 | going to become the same color because
Illustrator doesn't know yet which color
| | 02:41 | I want it to change into.
| | 02:43 | However, I have a variety of different
ways to tell Illustrator now which colors
| | 02:48 | I actually want to change into.
| | 02:50 | If I just wanted to, for example, swap
to colors, I could take let's say this
| | 02:54 | color right here, and drag it to this one.
| | 02:57 | That will actually swap the two colors,
so now this color is going to become
| | 03:01 | this color, while this
color now becomes this one.
| | 03:04 | Let me drag it back over here to go
back to the way that it was before.
| | 03:09 | Now, notice over here at the bottom I also
have two other colors that appear in my artwork.
| | 03:14 | I have the color black which is actually
just a border around the entire artwork
| | 03:18 | and I also have white which
appears here in the center of the flower.
| | 03:21 | Those colors don't change at all, and
that's something that we're going to
| | 03:24 | discuss in the next movie because as
we'll see, we have a certain way to protect
| | 03:28 | certain colors from not changing at all.
| | 03:31 | However, all of these colors have
Arrows meaning those colors can change.
| | 03:35 | I don't really see any change here
again, because all the colors are being
| | 03:38 | remapped back to themselves.
| | 03:40 | But let's say I am faced right now with
a situation where I'm working with some
| | 03:44 | artwork, and that artwork right now
has five different colors inside of it,
| | 03:48 | again I am not counting
black and white right now.
| | 03:50 | But I have these five colors right now
that are used inside of my file, and I'm
| | 03:55 | told that I can now only use
three colors in my artwork.
| | 03:58 | So what I could do is I could take this
color right here, my current color, and
| | 04:03 | I might say that these two colors are
pretty similar right now, I could actually
| | 04:06 | take this color and drag it into this color.
| | 04:09 | Notice now I have two colors that
appear inside of my Current Color selection.
| | 04:13 | I'm now basically saying again if we
look at that as a mathematical equation,
| | 04:18 | these two colors inside of my artwork
are now going to become a one new color.
| | 04:23 | If I take a look at these two colors
and I say these are similar, I can drag
| | 04:27 | this one into this one right here,
and again what I am doing is I am taking
| | 04:30 | two colors, and I am telling Illustrator
to turn those two colors into one new color.
| | 04:35 | Again, it doesn't really make a difference
how or where those colors are being used.
| | 04:39 | They can be inside of a pattern or an
ingredient, or as a fill and a stroke, I
| | 04:43 | don't care about that, because I am
focused purely on the color itself.
| | 04:48 | Now, if I have several colors inside of
one of these Color Rows, I can also move
| | 04:52 | my cursor to the far left and I have
like a little icon that appears, it only
| | 04:56 | appears when I actually mouse over that
Color Row, and if I click on that it's a
| | 04:59 | way for me to select all the colors in that row.
| | 05:02 | So, for example, if I come down to this
Color Row right here and click on this
| | 05:05 | icon, it selects all the colors in
that row, and I can drag them all at once
| | 05:09 | into this one new row.
| | 05:11 | Now, I am telling Illustrator take these
three colors, and turn them into one new color.
| | 05:16 | Now, like I said before there is No
undo button inside of this dialog box.
| | 05:20 | So let's kind of reset the tables here,
and I am actually going to come over
| | 05:24 | here to this icon which is called Get
colors from selected art, and by clicking
| | 05:28 | on it, I am basically now reloading the
original colors into this dialog again.
| | 05:32 | So I am kind of starting from
scratch, and once again, you can see that
| | 05:37 | Illustrator is listing all the
colors that appear in my selection, and
| | 05:40 | Illustrator is remapping each of
those colors back to itself again.
| | 05:44 | Another way for me to actually change a
color is to go to the New color here and
| | 05:48 | simply double-click on it.
| | 05:49 | This brings up the Color Picker and I
can choose a color here, or I can click on
| | 05:53 | Color Swatches and choose a
specific Color Swatch for my document.
| | 05:58 | In this way, even though I've selected
many different colors, I'm effectively
| | 06:02 | only changing one of those colors.
| | 06:05 | So again, this allows me to select
everything but only make changes to one
| | 06:09 | specific area of my artwork or more
specifically make changes only to a color
| | 06:14 | attribute, no matter where
that color might be used.
| | 06:17 | So now we have a better understanding
of what each of these Color Rows actually
| | 06:21 | represents when I'm looking at them.
| | 06:24 | We also noticed that some of these
Color Rows like the ones for black and white
| | 06:27 | here don't have any new colors assigned to them.
| | 06:30 | We'll understand why that's
the case in the next movie.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Protecting black, white, and gray| 00:00 | So we know that in Illustrator I can
use the Recolor Artwork feature to change
| | 00:05 | colors that appear inside
of any selected artwork.
| | 00:08 | Just to go through the basic steps on
how to do that, once I've a file open I
| | 00:13 | can make a selection on any artwork.
| | 00:15 | I could then click on the color wheel
here to open up the Recolor Artwork dialog
| | 00:19 | box, and I can start to use different
color rows here to adjust the colors that
| | 00:24 | appear inside of my document, and
how those colors were now changed into
| | 00:28 | something new that I've defined.
| | 00:30 | We also know that by default since
Illustrator doesn't know yet which colors we
| | 00:34 | want to change, all colors that
appear inside of my artwork are simply
| | 00:38 | re-mapped back to themselves.
| | 00:41 | However, we've also seen that
while some colors do get mapped back to
| | 00:45 | themselves some appear not to;
| | 00:48 | mainly in this case black and white.
| | 00:50 | Let's understand exactly why this
happens inside of Illustrator and more
| | 00:54 | importantly, let's understand how to
control it so that we can make it do the
| | 00:58 | things that we needed to
do for our particular task.
| | 01:02 | Most designers don't think
of black and white as colors.
| | 01:05 | In fact, if you're a graphic designer
and you're used to printing on paper or
| | 01:09 | even through a computer screen, like
you're a web designer, for example, the
| | 01:13 | color white has kind of a
different meaning to you.
| | 01:16 | White usually means
almost the same thing as none;
| | 01:20 | meaning it's the color of the actual paper.
| | 01:23 | So, for example, here, if I look at this
piece of artwork and I have this flower
| | 01:27 | that's white, I'm not actually
coloring it white, I just intend that to be
| | 01:32 | whatever color my background paper is,
since right now the page itself is white.
| | 01:37 | I have that filled out white but I
really kind of mean it almost to be in
| | 01:41 | the same thing as none.
| | 01:43 | Likewise, black very often is used in a
design for specific things like either
| | 01:48 | text or key lines,
outlines, shading, for example.
| | 01:53 | In fact, one of the reasons why black
is actually referred to as K in CMYK is
| | 01:59 | because it's called the Key color, and
in fact, many designers don't think of
| | 02:03 | the word black as color at all.
| | 02:06 | So if I want to make a whole bunch of
changes to my artwork, and I want to kind
| | 02:09 | of start messing around with colors, I
probably want whatever is white to stay
| | 02:13 | white and I probably want
whatever is black to stay black.
| | 02:17 | I just want to change the colors that
appear throughout the rest of my design.
| | 02:21 | That may not be the case if you're
an apparel designer, for example.
| | 02:25 | You maybe screen-printing artwork on
to a T-shirt and maybe that T-shirt has
| | 02:29 | some kind of a gray background or maybe
some other kind of color material, and
| | 02:33 | you now want to have artwork
appear printed on top of that material.
| | 02:38 | If you want a color white you
actually have to print the color white.
| | 02:42 | To you as an apparel designer white
isn't simply none or the background
| | 02:47 | color, white actually is white, it's a
separate color and you need to print in that color.
| | 02:53 | The same thing applies to black.
| | 02:55 | If you're an apparel designer then every
color that you're using has significance.
| | 03:01 | Now of course, it all depends on the
kind of design that you're doing and more
| | 03:05 | importantly how you're eventually
going to process that piece of artwork.
| | 03:09 | By default, Illustrator kind of
takes the lowest common denominator.
| | 03:12 | It assumes that as a designer you
probably want Black to remain and you probably
| | 03:17 | also want white to remain, and that's
why these two colors here do not switch at
| | 03:22 | their default settings.
| | 03:24 | But let's take a look at how to
control this now inside of the Recolor
| | 03:26 | Artwork dialog box.
| | 03:28 | There is a little teeny button over
here which allows us to open up a separate
| | 03:31 | dialog box called Color Reduction Options.
| | 03:34 | And if I click on it, I'll see that
at the bottom here there is an option
| | 03:38 | here for Preserve and right now
Illustrator has White and Black checked, and
| | 03:43 | Grays are unchecked.
| | 03:44 | What this check box means is right
now Illustrator is going to preserve the
| | 03:48 | color white and it's also going to
preserve the color black in my artwork;
| | 03:52 | meaning those colors will not be included
when I go ahead and I recolor my artwork.
| | 03:58 | I like to refer to this
as protecting those colors.
| | 04:01 | In Illustrator Black, White and Gray
colors can automatically be protected.
| | 04:07 | However, let's say again, you're some
kind of a designer, maybe an apparel
| | 04:10 | designer and you don't want
to protect white or black.
| | 04:14 | If there is white in your design you
may want to change that to a different ink
| | 04:18 | color, so what I'm going to here in
this case is I'm going to uncheck White and
| | 04:22 | I'm going to uncheck Black as well,
and when I click OK, you'll notice that
| | 04:26 | right now black and white do
get re-mapped to a color here.
| | 04:30 | But right now they both appear as two
colors within one color row, which means
| | 04:34 | that white now is actually
going to get re-mapped to black.
| | 04:38 | I don't want that to happen, so I'll
click on White right here and I actually
| | 04:42 | click on this button here
to create a new color row.
| | 04:45 | Now I could take the white and
drag it to its own color row.
| | 04:48 | Another way to unprotect a color is
actually to simply click over here on the
| | 04:53 | arrow and then double-click to define
what color I want that colors to become.
| | 04:59 | So it ask me, if I want to add a new
color and I'll say Yes, and notice now
| | 05:02 | that becomes white.
| | 05:04 | So before where I was actually changing
only five out of the seven colors that
| | 05:08 | appear inside of that piece of artwork,
I'm now actually going to be changing
| | 05:11 | all seven colors that
appear inside of that artwork.
| | 05:14 | Because, now black and white are no
longer protected, and remember inside of
| | 05:19 | this dialog box here I could also choose
to protect grays if I want to, and that
| | 05:24 | becomes useful if you're working with
artwork that has different values of grays
| | 05:27 | that you're using for shading.
| | 05:29 | In other words, you may want to change
the colors inside of that artwork but you
| | 05:32 | wanted the shading to remain the same.
| | 05:34 | So in that case you would want to protect gray.
| | 05:37 | So just keep in mind when you're
working inside of Illustrator, that by default
| | 05:41 | Illustrator is going to try to protect
black and white, while that may be useful
| | 05:46 | for most kinds of design projects
inside of Illustrator, that's certainly not
| | 05:49 | the case for all of them, and
that's why these options exist.
| | 05:53 | I'll click OK to go back to the Recolor
Artwork dialog box and it's important to
| | 05:57 | remember that at all times you as a
designer have full control over all the
| | 06:02 | colors inside of your artwork.
| | 06:04 | Sometimes however, these little
preferences can make it difficult to achieve the
| | 06:08 | effect that you're looking to apply, but
hopefully now you'll have the knowledge
| | 06:12 | to avoid running into any problems.
| | 06:14 | In fact, the Recolor Artwork dialog box
is filled with all these little goodies.
| | 06:19 | In the next two videos, we'll actually
cover two of them that I think you'll
| | 06:22 | find extremely useful.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finding colors quickly with the magnifying glass| 00:00 | The Recolor Artwork function
inside of illustrator is a great way to
| | 00:04 | actually make changes of colors to
your artwork, however, if you have a lot
| | 00:09 | of colors going on inside of your
artwork, it can sometimes be hard to find
| | 00:13 | where those colors are actually
being used, especially for someone like
| | 00:17 | myself who can sometimes find it hard
to make distinctions between colors,
| | 00:20 | because I'm colorblind.
| | 00:22 | I appreciate any kind of feature that
will help me find where colors are used
| | 00:26 | inside of my document.
| | 00:28 | Let's take a look at how we can use the
Recolor Artwork feature to actually do this.
| | 00:31 | I am actually going to start by
selecting all of my artwork here, because I want
| | 00:36 | to identify colors across all
the artwork inside of my document.
| | 00:40 | The Recolor Artwork dialog box is quite
large, so I am just going to simply hold
| | 00:44 | down my spacebar to get the hand
grabber tool and I am just going to reposition
| | 00:48 | the page right now to the upper
left-hand corner of my screen.
| | 00:51 | Now with my artwork selected, I am
going to click on the color wheel over here
| | 00:55 | to actually open up the
Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 00:57 | It's on the side of over here, so now I
can see all of my artwork, and you can
| | 01:01 | see that right now inside of all the
artwork that I have right now selected,
| | 01:06 | there are 17 colors right now that are
in use, and if I scroll down the list
| | 01:09 | here, I can see all these colors.
| | 01:12 | Again, in the previous movie I turned
off the ability for illustrator to protect
| | 01:17 | black and white, so right now black
and white also show up as colors counted
| | 01:22 | within that number 17 right here.
| | 01:24 | But if I scroll to the top over here, I
have all these different shades of green
| | 01:28 | and I'm not really sure exactly where
all these colors are used in my design.
| | 01:32 | So if I take a look over here on the
bottom right-hand corner, there is a little
| | 01:36 | magnifying glass and if I click on it,
I basically activate a special mode now
| | 01:41 | that's purely used for preview purposes.
| | 01:44 | Notice right now that all of my artwork
is kind of gotten grayed out, it's kind
| | 01:48 | of dimmed back in brightness.
| | 01:50 | Now whenever I click on any of the
colors here, those that are my current
| | 01:54 | colors, Illustrator will light up
in my document where are those colors
| | 01:58 | currently being used.
| | 02:00 | If I click on this color, for example,
it lights up that here's the background
| | 02:04 | color, and as I go through each of
these colors, I can actually see where those
| | 02:08 | colors are being used in my artwork.
| | 02:10 | I find this incredibly helpful, because
it allows me to identify where colors are.
| | 02:15 | You know, sometimes you'll find that
when you open up the Recolor Artwork dialog
| | 02:19 | box, you will see a color in there that
maybe you didn't notice before, maybe by
| | 02:23 | accident you applied a
color that you didn't mean to.
| | 02:26 | This is a great way to
quickly find where that color is.
| | 02:30 | Now I'm doing this with distinct objects,
but remember, all these features work
| | 02:34 | across Patterns and Gradients as well,
so if you have a gradient or pattern
| | 02:38 | that uses a specific color, turning on
the magnifying glass and then clicking
| | 02:42 | on each of these colors will highlight
just those colors even within Patterns,
| | 02:46 | Symbols, or Gradients.
| | 02:49 | Now if I hold down my Shift key, I can
actually start to click multiple colors
| | 02:53 | and all those colors will become
highlighted, even those not indicated here, by
| | 02:58 | making them dark gray, you can see that
there is an outline that appears around
| | 03:02 | each of these color bars.
| | 03:04 | Once I have identified where these
colors are used inside of my artwork, I can
| | 03:08 | now make better decisions on how
to actually change those colors.
| | 03:11 | Once I am down identifying the colors,
I can simply click on the magnifying
| | 03:15 | glass again to return back to a full
preview, so the magnifying glass is kind of
| | 03:19 | like a toggle, you can turn it on to
now preview and show off your colors and
| | 03:24 | then click on it again
to turn that function off.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Randomly changing colors| 00:00 | The Recolor Artwork feature inside of
illustrator is fantastic when you want to
| | 00:05 | make specific changes in color to your artwork.
| | 00:08 | However, the majority of the time that
you are using the feature, you already
| | 00:11 | know the color changes that you want to make.
| | 00:14 | There are times however where you're
not really sure yet what colors you want
| | 00:17 | to change it to, you just kind of want
to mix things up a little bit, you want
| | 00:20 | to experiment and it happens to be
that the Recolor Artwork dialog box can
| | 00:24 | actually help you do that.
| | 00:26 | In this document here called recolor.ai,
I am simply going to select this piece
| | 00:30 | of our work here on the left.
| | 00:32 | Next, I am going to open up the Recolor
Artwork feature and I'll take a look now
| | 00:36 | at the current colors that
are inside of my selection.
| | 00:38 | Notice right now that black and white
are not protected, they are included in
| | 00:43 | the other colors here.
| | 00:44 | I am to want to actually kind of
experiment with different colors here, but in
| | 00:48 | this case here I do want black
and white to always remain the same.
| | 00:52 | So what I am simply going to do here
in this case is just click on the arrows
| | 00:55 | here to make it, so that these two
colors now do not change into new colors.
| | 01:00 | Now I know that I can already come
here to this part of the dialog box right
| | 01:03 | here and start to click and drag to switch
which colors are being used, they can swap colors.
| | 01:09 | So, for example, I could take this
color here and kind of move it here and see
| | 01:12 | what that looks like, but that's a
manual process, instead, I am going to
| | 01:17 | comeback over here to just reload the
colors again, and I am going to come down
| | 01:21 | to these little icons here at the bottom.
| | 01:23 | We already discovered what the
magnifying glass does, but over here this button
| | 01:27 | allows you to randomly change the
orders of the colors, so right now I have
| | 01:31 | five colors, I wanted to still use the
same five colors, but I would like to
| | 01:36 | maybe move those colors around and
experiment with different ways to apply those colors.
| | 01:40 | By clicking on this button over here,
Illustrator is going to randomly change
| | 01:45 | the order that these colors appear in,
so in other words, these colors will
| | 01:48 | stay the same, however, the colors that there
are mapped to are going to be randomly changed.
| | 01:53 | So each time that I click on this
button, I'm going to see different ways to
| | 01:57 | actually work with those colors.
| | 01:59 | Now it's important to realize that here
in this example I have protected black
| | 02:04 | and white, meaning those colors that
are used in the artwork won't change, but
| | 02:07 | because those colors do appear in the
artwork, they get loaded into disharmony,
| | 02:12 | which is what's being used to feed
the colors for this random order.
| | 02:16 | So that means the black and white can
be used when I randomize these colors.
| | 02:21 | So I can continue to click on this to
view different possible designs and maybe
| | 02:25 | I really like this one right now.
| | 02:28 | What I can do is I can either click OK
to accept that, or I can actually come
| | 02:32 | right over here and click on this
button to create a new color group, meaning,
| | 02:36 | save the order right now, these
colors into a new color group.
| | 02:39 | Yes, right now these colors are the
same as they were inside the original
| | 02:44 | artwork, but they now appear in a
different order, and remember that the order
| | 02:48 | in which the colors appear in
inside of a color group is significant.
| | 02:52 | So I can either create new color groups
and then continue randomizing or if I am
| | 02:56 | happy with what I see right now, simply
click OK to accept that and now I have
| | 03:00 | changed the colors inside of my artwork.
| | 03:03 | Now remember, if you have certain
colors that are inside of a pattern, you can
| | 03:07 | easily randomize different colors
that appear inside of that pattern and
| | 03:11 | generate new and interesting color
combinations, it's yet another way to have
| | 03:15 | Illustrator's Recolor Artwork feature
help you in your day-to-day design tasks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Color ModificationMaking global color adjustments| 00:00 | Up until this point we focused on some
of the technical parts about what make
| | 00:04 | recolor artwork work inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | However, in this chapter I want to
take some of the knowledge that we've now
| | 00:11 | acquired in the previous chapters and
apply them to some real world examples.
| | 00:16 | Take this file right here, it's called
global.ai and I have a whole bunch of
| | 00:19 | different icons that maybe I've
created for some piece of artwork.
| | 00:23 | I may have a certain situation where
since these colors appear muted I might
| | 00:28 | want to brighten them up a bit.
| | 00:30 | Now I want this change to happen across
the board for my artwork and to do that
| | 00:35 | I can take advantage of some of the
global settings that I had inside of the
| | 00:38 | recolor artwork dialog box.
| | 00:39 | I a going to start by just moving
this over here to the side, I am going to
| | 00:42 | use the Hand tool for that, I am pressing
the spacebar to move that over to the side.
| | 00:47 | I am going to select just artwork on
top because again I want to show that the
| | 00:51 | recolor artwork dialog box allows
you to make changes to one part of your
| | 00:55 | artwork without affecting other parts.
| | 00:58 | So I want to leave this original one
down here in the bottom, but I now want to
| | 01:01 | create another version, may be my
company is making a business presentation and
| | 01:05 | they need some graphics or
PowerPoint and you know everybody likes bright
| | 01:08 | colors and PowerPoint.
| | 01:09 | So we are going to try to wake up some
of these colors to serve a different need.
| | 01:14 | Notice, by the way, since I have a
group selected right now instead of
| | 01:17 | just single objects, the little
color chip wheel now appears in this part
| | 01:22 | of the Control panel.
| | 01:23 | This is actually due to the contextual
nature of the Control panel, it changes
| | 01:28 | based on your selection.
| | 01:30 | Sometimes the color chip wheel will
appear somewhere over here and sometimes it
| | 01:33 | will be over here and if again you have
a hard time finding it you can simply go
| | 01:37 | to the Edit menu and choose Edit
Colors and then choose Recolor Artwork.
| | 01:42 | Now I am going to move the of dialog
box over here and again I see all of my
| | 01:46 | colors listed but I am not
focusing on that right now.
| | 01:49 | I am going to go to the bottom here
where I currently have my CMYK sliders.
| | 01:53 | If I go to this pop up right over
here, I see that I can choose between
| | 01:56 | different sliders like RGB,
HSB, Lab color, for example.
| | 02:01 | But I also have this setting here
called Global Adjust and this gives me
| | 02:05 | settings called Saturation, Brightness,
Temperature and Luminosity and there is
| | 02:10 | somewhat similar to the settings that
you might find inside of Photoshop when
| | 02:14 | you want to be able to adjust the
levels of pixels inside of an image.
| | 02:18 | But here I have some vector artwork that
I have selected and of course there are
| | 02:22 | colors that are being used here.
| | 02:24 | So if I just simply want to make the
colors brighter and I want to increase
| | 02:26 | their saturation, I can actually make
some adjustments here and notice that all
| | 02:31 | of the colors are changing at once.
| | 02:33 | These colors are called Global
Adjustments because there is no way to make these
| | 02:37 | adjustments only apply to just
one color within your selection.
| | 02:41 | We discussed before that you have the
ability to use the Recolor Artwork dialog
| | 02:45 | box to lock certain colors or make
adjustments to only certain colors.
| | 02:49 | That's true for all other kinds of
adjustments but not with Global Adjustments.
| | 02:55 | So any change that I make here to these
sliders, like change in Temperature or
| | 02:58 | Luminosity, or let's say I just want to
really pump up the saturation here, get
| | 03:03 | some nice bright colors.
| | 03:04 | So now I'm actually making
adjustments to all of the colors that appear
| | 03:08 | inside of my selection.
| | 03:11 | Now I'll click OK to apply those
settings and now you can see a difference to
| | 03:15 | have my original artwork, again this did
not change because it was not selected.
| | 03:20 | But these colors did change.
| | 03:21 | Well again, working with the Recolor
Artwork dialog box I have the ability to
| | 03:26 | make changes to just the artwork that I want.
| | 03:29 | So I can make very precise changes like
I've just done here and I can make those
| | 03:34 | changes no matter how color is used
within that artwork, meaning that those
| | 03:38 | Global Adjustments work on
gradients, or patterns or gradient mesh.
| | 03:42 | So it's yet another way to make
color adjustments inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Remapping colors in an illustration| 00:00 | One of the great things about the
Recolor Artwork feature inside of
| | 00:03 | Illustrator is that it allows you to easily
make color changes throughout your design process.
| | 00:09 | Say, right now I am looking at this far
right here, it's called remapping.ai and
| | 00:13 | I am working on some packaging.
| | 00:15 | Maybe I just got word from my client
that we have some more money for budget and
| | 00:19 | they want to do something special.
| | 00:20 | They want these packages to kind of
fly off the shelves. Why not, right?
| | 00:24 | So one idea that I had is may be
adding some custom colors, so in addition to
| | 00:30 | printing four-color process, maybe also
adding two additional Pantone colors and
| | 00:35 | using Pantone metallic colors.
| | 00:38 | Those are special metallic inks that
have little chips of metal that actually
| | 00:42 | appear inside of them to give it a
nice sheen, especially, if the material
| | 00:45 | that this is going to be printed on
is going to be a glossy stock it really
| | 00:49 | might make things pop.
| | 00:51 | So maybe I am going to change let's
say this color here behind the word
| | 00:53 | Seeds and this color over here
probably here behind the flower to be some
| | 00:57 | kind of metallic color.
| | 00:59 | The first thing I am going to do is I
am actually going to add those Pantone
| | 01:02 | colors to my document.
| | 01:04 | You know sitting in front of me right
now I have my trusted little Pantone color
| | 01:07 | book, but if you don't have one, maybe
you've gotten the colors already sent to
| | 01:11 | you by either another designer or maybe
the client or the printer has requested
| | 01:15 | specific Pantone numbers.
| | 01:17 | Otherwise, of course, you can simply
just scroll through all of different colors
| | 01:21 | that appear within a library.
| | 01:23 | I am going to start here by going to
my Swatches panel and I'll come down
| | 01:26 | here to the bottom and I'll load
where it says Color Books, my PANTONE
| | 01:31 | metallic coated library.
| | 01:33 | Now I already know which colors I want
to use, so I am going to go to the little
| | 01:36 | flyout menu here and choose Show Find
Field, so that now I can now type in a
| | 01:40 | number, and the first value I
want to use is PANTONE 8203.
| | 01:45 | Now once I add that number in here I can
simply click on this swatch and it adds
| | 01:49 | it now to my document.
| | 01:51 | Now I am going to type in another value
here, that's the color I am going to use
| | 01:54 | to say for the color behind the word Seeds.
| | 01:56 | But now I want kind of a metallic
green, let's go with Pantone 8343.
| | 02:02 | And you notice at the swatch right now
is highlighted here in the corner and
| | 02:05 | I'll just again click on it
to now add that to my document.
| | 02:08 | So now I can close the PANTONE library,
I don't need anymore Pantone colors and
| | 02:12 | the two colors that I want to use right
now appear inside of my Swatches panel
| | 02:16 | PANTONE 8343 and PANTONE 8203.
| | 02:19 | Another thing here is I want to make
changes to just one of these pieces of
| | 02:24 | artwork in my document and I either
want to do that to show my client two
| | 02:28 | different design concepts or maybe I
just don't want to lose my original in case
| | 02:32 | we decide later on to go back to the
version that does not use PANTONE colors,
| | 02:36 | or maybe I am actually creating
artwork for two different print runs.
| | 02:39 | Whatever reason is, I right now only
want to select just the top piece of
| | 02:43 | artwork, because the changes I'm
going to make are going to be just to this
| | 02:46 | piece of artwork not to anything else.
| | 02:49 | Next, I'll open up the recolor
artwork dialog box, I'll click on the little
| | 02:52 | color chip here inside of my Control
panel and I now see a list of all the
| | 02:57 | colors that appear inside of this Artwork.
| | 02:58 | There are actually 18 colors here at play.
| | 03:01 | Now I am not really exactly sure
which of these shades of green or
| | 03:05 | different shades of color here are
used in the position that I want to
| | 03:08 | change in the artwork.
| | 03:09 | So what I might start doing is
clicking on the magnifying glass here to put
| | 03:14 | myself into this color preview mode,
and now I'll start clicking on the
| | 03:17 | different colors to see which
color I actually want change.
| | 03:21 | I don't want to change that one, we
click on this here and note that's used in
| | 03:24 | the leaves, it's actually used in
one of the gradient stops of that leaf.
| | 03:28 | We click on this one here, oh!
| | 03:29 | That's the color right there.
| | 03:31 | I want to make it change to this one color.
| | 03:33 | I want this color to
change to that Pantone 8343.
| | 03:38 | So a quick way for me to do that is just
as simply double-click on the new color
| | 03:42 | for that color row, click on Color
Swatches and scroll down to that Pantone
| | 03:47 | value, which is right here, PANTONE 8343.
| | 03:49 | I am going to choose OK and now
Illustrator is now going to change wherever this
| | 03:56 | color appears in my selected
artwork to that Pantone color.
| | 04:00 | Let's change to color now
that appears behind word seeds.
| | 04:03 | I am going to scroll down further here
in this list and again, I'm not exactly
| | 04:06 | sure which of these shades is being
used for that, so I am just going to click
| | 04:10 | on these and I see the first
one that I clicked on right here.
| | 04:13 | If I click on these, I can see that that
color is being used in other areas of my design.
| | 04:18 | But for now I am going to
click on this one right here.
| | 04:20 | I am going to double-click on the new
color for that color row, choose Color
| | 04:24 | Swatches, once again scroll through
all the swatches that appear inside of my
| | 04:28 | document until I see PANTONE 8203.
| | 04:30 | I am going to click OK and now I've
successfully remapped that color as well.
| | 04:36 | I am actually going to uncheck the
magnifying glass and you can see actually
| | 04:40 | right now on my screen what those
new colors are going to look like.
| | 04:43 | This was the older version;
| | 04:45 | this now is the new version with
metallic Pantone colors replaced.
| | 04:48 | Now that I click OK, I've been able to
make my changes now in a very easy way.
| | 04:54 | I just made the changes just the two boxes.
| | 04:57 | You might have said, well, why
don't you just select this one box,
| | 05:00 | double-click to isolate, double-click
again, select this box and then just
| | 05:04 | manually change the color?
| | 05:05 | Well, I could do that.
| | 05:07 | This happens to be a very simple example.
| | 05:09 | But if I have a very complex piece
of artwork and maybe that color that I
| | 05:13 | want to change to a metallic color also
appears inside of a pattern or inside of a gradient.
| | 05:18 | Or it appears in like 20
different places in my artwork.
| | 05:21 | I don't want to have now select each
of those places and if I were to use the
| | 05:26 | command over here to choose Select Same
Fill Color, meaning, I would just use my
| | 05:30 | white arrow here to just select one
object right now and then choose to select
| | 05:34 | all other objects with the same fill color.
| | 05:36 | Then I would get object selected over here
for elements that I don't want to change.
| | 05:41 | So I'd have to go through this whole
process of like locking certain artwork or
| | 05:44 | hiding it or putting it on lock layers
and then go through this entire process
| | 05:48 | of just making a selection in
order to make a color change.
| | 05:52 | And again, one final note, that
color may also appear not only as fill
| | 05:56 | attributes, but also a stroke attributes.
| | 05:58 | So that would mean I need to select
all the objects that use that color as a
| | 06:01 | fill, make the color change.
| | 06:03 | Then select all objects that have that
as a stroke color and make a color change.
| | 06:07 | Whereas here, I could do it all
in one fell swoop using the Recolor
| | 06:11 | Artwork dialog.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fixing colors in a document| 00:00 | When it comes to using Illustrator, I
actually started out doing something
| | 00:04 | called art production.
| | 00:06 | That's where I had to work with files
that were already designed, but I had to
| | 00:09 | get them ready for print.
| | 00:10 | I had to make sure that all the colors
were correct and that everything in the
| | 00:13 | file was going to work wonderfully
when it was handed off to a printer.
| | 00:17 | So from a personal perspective, I
am extremely appreciative of some of
| | 00:22 | the wonderful things that Recolor
Artwork does from a purely print
| | 00:26 | production perspective.
| | 00:27 | Meaning, how can I take a look at the
colors used in this file and make sure
| | 00:31 | that everything is right?
| | 00:33 | You know one of the things that we as
designers do before getting files ready
| | 00:36 | for print is we want to make sure
that all the colors are correct.
| | 00:39 | In this example right here, I have
some colors that are being used and I also
| | 00:43 | have the color black that's being used.
| | 00:44 | It's possible throughout the design that
there may be different kinds of blacks used;
| | 00:50 | we know that sometimes for printing,
we create something called a Rich Black.
| | 00:54 | That's where we actually take black
itself, but we add additional colors to it
| | 00:58 | like additional values of cyan,
magenta and yellow, so that the Black appears
| | 01:03 | even blacker when printed on press.
| | 01:05 | You can see that in this document
right here, I have a regular black swatch,
| | 01:09 | where if I double-click on it to see
what actually it's made of, I can see that
| | 01:13 | the value here is set to a
100% black, but nothing else.
| | 01:16 | Let me click Cancel here.
| | 01:18 | I've also created another swatch
inside of this document, which I've renamed
| | 01:22 | Rich Black and if I double-click on it,
I see that I have used values of 60%
| | 01:27 | cyan and 40% of magenta and
yellow in addition to the 100% black.
| | 01:33 | Now many times designers want to use
these Rich Blacks to get a much nicer look
| | 01:38 | in the final print of your design.
| | 01:40 | However, just by looking at my artwork
right now on the screen, how do I know
| | 01:44 | that all these blacks are
actually set to use that Rich Black?
| | 01:49 | Maybe there are some files here that
are just using the other black swatch.
| | 01:52 | On top of that, because Black is
sometimes just hard to see on my screen, I may
| | 01:57 | not know if somebody has
just even one percentage off.
| | 02:00 | For example, if I click on this shape
right here I am using my white arrow.
| | 02:03 | I just click on the center dot
right here of this piece of artwork.
| | 02:07 | I can actually see that this
piece of art is set to 95% black.
| | 02:12 | So it really should be black, but right now
it's going to print as a very, very dark gray.
| | 02:16 | So how can I quickly go through my file and
make sure that all the colors are correct?
| | 02:22 | Well, let me show you how to use
Recolor Artwork, not necessarily as a
| | 02:26 | creative tool, but more of a
production tool to make sure that your file is
| | 02:30 | going to print correctly.
| | 02:31 | Now I am going to start out by using my
regular selection tool and I'll press
| | 02:35 | Command+A to select all of my artwork.
| | 02:37 | Again, here I want to make it change to any
artwork that appears throughout my entire file.
| | 02:42 | I am also going to zoom out just a
bit, press Command+Minus here or a
| | 02:45 | Ctrl+Minus on my keyboard and I'll
just move this over here to the upper
| | 02:49 | left, so that I have room to
see my recolor artwork dialog box.
| | 02:53 | Now I'll click on little color chip
here to open up this dialog and actually
| | 02:57 | before I do anything, when I scroll
down here to the bottom you can see that
| | 03:01 | black and white over here
by default are protected.
| | 03:04 | I really don't want to protect any colors here;
| | 03:05 | I want to see everything inside of my document.
| | 03:08 | So the first thing I am actually going
to do is I am going to this little pop-up
| | 03:11 | right here where it says Color
Reduction Options, and I'm going to uncheck
| | 03:15 | Preserve White and uncheck Preserve
Black, then I am going to click OK.
| | 03:19 | Many times what I do to try to keep
things fresh, especially I have to make a
| | 03:23 | preference change like that, and so I
actually Cancel out of the dialog box, and
| | 03:27 | then I re-launch the dialog box once again.
| | 03:30 | This way when I scroll down here I can see
that black and white are no longer protected.
| | 03:35 | Now I could actually see just by
looking at this file that I have several
| | 03:39 | different shades of what might look
like black, but these are actually gray.
| | 03:42 | I have one black over here, I have
another black over here, and I have like
| | 03:46 | these really dark shades of gray over
here and all of these should really be black.
| | 03:51 | And on top of that I also
want all them to be Rich Black.
| | 03:55 | Now how do I know which
one I'm dealing with here?
| | 03:57 | Well, if I click on this one right
here and I set my slider here to be the
| | 04:01 | CMYK sliders, I could see that this object right
here is actually filled with a semi-Rich Black.
| | 04:08 | Maybe I actually copy and pasted some
artwork from another document or more
| | 04:13 | likely maybe another designer sometime
in his design process actually wanted to
| | 04:18 | create their own Rich Black and they
thought Rich Black was just adding 40%
| | 04:21 | cyan, which may have been the norm for
many years ago, but nowadays presses can
| | 04:26 | handle more coverage, so Rich Blacks
these days are usually ones that use values
| | 04:31 | from all of different colors on all four plates.
| | 04:34 | If I click on this black over here I see
this one is just simply 100% black, and
| | 04:38 | then I have some objects that are
apparently are filled with 95% gray and some
| | 04:43 | of them even have 90% gray.
| | 04:45 | Now my first thought here might just
be where actually are these pieces of
| | 04:48 | artwork being used, where are
these colors used in my artwork?
| | 04:52 | So again, I could use the
magnifying glass to help me out.
| | 04:55 | I can see just by selecting this color
right here that this text where it says,
| | 04:59 | hansel & petal is colored with 90% gray.
| | 05:03 | If I click on this object right here,
I see that this piece of artwork is
| | 05:07 | filled with 95% gray.
| | 05:09 | If I click here, I can see the other
words that they hansel & petal and if I
| | 05:13 | click on this object I see that right
now that's currently the Semi Rich Black.
| | 05:17 | But I want to turn all
these into a Rich Black as well.
| | 05:20 | So here is what I am going to do.
| | 05:22 | I am going to take this gray color right
here and drag it up into this color row.
| | 05:27 | Again, that means that I am telling
Illustrator I want both of these colors to
| | 05:31 | now be remapped to one new color.
| | 05:33 | Don't worry about the new color yet,
we are not up to that that point.
| | 05:36 | But I have other colors that I
also want to combine with that.
| | 05:39 | So I am going to take this gray color,
drag that up into this color row, and
| | 05:44 | finally I'll take this gray color
and also drag that into the color row.
| | 05:47 | So now I have four different shades of black.
| | 05:51 | If you want to think about it that
way, that I now want to have them all
| | 05:54 | remapped to one new color, I
want them to all be a Rich Black.
| | 05:58 | So I am going to double-click
now on the new color.
| | 06:02 | I'll go to color swatches and I'll
choose my Rich Black color and click OK.
| | 06:07 | Now all these four grays or blacks
here are all going to get remapped to one
| | 06:12 | new Rich Black color.
| | 06:14 | I am going to turn off the magnifying
glass here and I just need to do one
| | 06:18 | additional thing here to make
sure that my colors print correctly.
| | 06:22 | You see right now I have four different
shades of black and that's going to get
| | 06:26 | remapped to one new black.
| | 06:28 | But by default, Illustrator uses
something called a Colorization method to take
| | 06:33 | the four different shades of black and
generate four different tint values of my new color.
| | 06:38 | We'll actually talk about this
concept of colorization methods a little bit
| | 06:42 | later in this chapter.
| | 06:44 | But for now I am going to go to this
little arrow that appears in the right side
| | 06:47 | of this color row next to the new color.
| | 06:49 | I am going to click on it and I am
going to choose this option called Exact.
| | 06:53 | You can see even over here on my
screen that I still see a differentiation
| | 06:56 | between the four different
shades of black that I'm dealing with.
| | 07:00 | However, if I choose Exact I'm basically
telling Illustrator take all these four
| | 07:04 | different shades and convert them
to one solid shade of the new color.
| | 07:09 | So I am going to choose the exact option
here and I can just simply click off of
| | 07:13 | it to get rid of that.
| | 07:14 | So what I've just done now is I've
gone through my entire document, I've
| | 07:18 | identified any colors that really
should all be now the same color.
| | 07:22 | I had some rogue gray colors here.
| | 07:24 | They now have all been converted to a
Rich Black color without me having to
| | 07:29 | worry about selecting all these things
and trying to find them in my document.
| | 07:32 | In fact, I've noticed one
other interesting thing here.
| | 07:35 | If I scroll down to the bottom of
the list, because I don't have whites
| | 07:39 | protected either, I actually see that
there are two different kind of whites
| | 07:42 | used in this document.
| | 07:44 | That can happen for many different reasons.
| | 07:46 | Either I started at a white color that
may have be from an RGB document that got
| | 07:49 | converted, or sometimes if you are a
fashion designer you may have different
| | 07:54 | kinds of whites that
exists inside of your document.
| | 07:57 | That's because each of those whites may
refer to a different type of color that
| | 08:00 | you're applying to a garment.
| | 08:02 | Even still when I create separations, I
am not really going to have a problem here.
| | 08:06 | Again, granted that those
colors are not spot colors.
| | 08:09 | But still if I want to clean things up
inside of my document, I can combine both
| | 08:13 | of these whites by dragging one into the other.
| | 08:16 | Now I am basically telling Illustrator,
take these two white colors and have
| | 08:19 | them all now be remapped to one new
white color, and if I want to make sure that
| | 08:23 | it's the white color that's in my
document, I can double-click here, go to Color
| | 08:27 | Swatches and choose white in my document.
| | 08:30 | So now I've been able to clean up the
colors in my document, I am going to click
| | 08:33 | OK and I'm left now with a document
that's perfectly ready to go to print.
| | 08:38 | Any blacks or even dark grays that I
found I've been able to convert to a
| | 08:41 | Rich Black and I've ensured that there are no
duplications of colors inside of my document.
| | 08:46 | Once again, Recolor Artwork is a great
way to check the colors inside of your
| | 08:50 | document and making the necessary
changes before you're ready to send it off
| | 08:55 | for print.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding color reduction| 00:00 | One of the things that the recolor
artwork feature inside of Illustrator excels
| | 00:04 | at is something called Color Reduction.
| | 00:07 | Many times as you're working throughout
a design, you may start off with using a
| | 00:11 | lot of colors, but then you may find
that as you move along that you want to
| | 00:14 | reduce the number of
colors that you're working with.
| | 00:17 | For example, in a previous movie
inside this chapter we spoke about taking
| | 00:22 | several different shades of grays or
blacks and converting them all to a
| | 00:27 | single rich black color.
| | 00:28 | So we took four colors and we reduced
them down, to only now use one color.
| | 00:34 | True, in that case I was dealing
specifically with all things that were intended
| | 00:38 | to be black or that were
intended to be a single color.
| | 00:42 | However, there are many times when
you have multiple colors at hand and you
| | 00:46 | need to find a way to reduce the
number of colors down either for budget
| | 00:50 | reasons or even design reasons to use a
fewer number of colors let's take this
| | 00:55 | example right here.
| | 00:56 | I started out with a four color process
version of my artwork which appears in
| | 01:00 | the left side right here.
| | 01:02 | Then I wanted to offer my client another option.
| | 01:05 | I thought it might be nice to add some
spot colors specifically some Pantone
| | 01:10 | metallic colors to really add
something to the final printed piece.
| | 01:14 | So my proposal was to stick with the
existing four color process which is used
| | 01:19 | in all of the rest of the artwork,
but to add two additional colors to my
| | 01:22 | design, two pantone metallic colors.
| | 01:25 | So the total number of colors that would be
used now when I print this would be six colors.
| | 01:30 | I would need cyan, magenta, yellow, and
black plus I would need the two pantone colors.
| | 01:36 | After showing this to my client he loved
the idea of using this metallic colors.
| | 01:41 | In fact, he was enamored with them.
| | 01:43 | But he didn't have the
budget to print with six colors.
| | 01:46 | So instead he asked if we could
actually create a version of this artwork that
| | 01:50 | uses all pantone colors, meaning take
the two metallic pantone colors that I
| | 01:55 | used and use those for the
rest of the design as well.
| | 01:59 | We probably still want to keep black in
play here, but we were able to convince
| | 02:03 | the client to go with a three color job,
meaning we are going to use black ink,
| | 02:07 | plus the two pantone colors.
| | 02:09 | My task at hand right now is to get all
of my artwork that appears now on this
| | 02:14 | design to only use either
black or the two pantone colors.
| | 02:20 | So let's see how we can use the Recolor
Artwork dialog box to make that happen for us.
| | 02:25 | In the process, we are going to
learn something about a colorization
| | 02:29 | method inside of Illustrator, which is going
to provide us with a few different options.
| | 02:33 | So I am first going to
create a copy of this artwork.
| | 02:36 | This is the version that already, has
the two pantone colors that appear at this
| | 02:40 | part of the artwork.
| | 02:41 | So I am just going to select this,
I'll go to my tools panel and I'll
| | 02:45 | double-click on the Selection tool.
| | 02:47 | This brings up the Move dialog and I'll
type in a value of 250 for Horizontal,
| | 02:52 | and then I'll click Copy.
| | 02:55 | So now I've created a copy of this
artwork and I am going to work on this copy
| | 02:58 | now to create yet a third version.
| | 03:00 | This version is going to contain
only black and two spot colors.
| | 03:05 | So with the artwork selected, I am
going to click on the color wheel here to
| | 03:08 | bring up the Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 03:10 | I'll position it here on the left side
so I can focus on the artwork right here
| | 03:14 | and I'll see that currently
in my design I have 16 colors.
| | 03:17 | If I scroll down the list here, I
see that it's also counting white and
| | 03:21 | black and shades of gray.
| | 03:22 | By the way, these shades of gray
here are being used in the gradient that
| | 03:26 | appears in the background.
| | 03:27 | I am going to be able to use black in my design.
| | 03:30 | I am going to actually go with
a three color print job here.
| | 03:32 | I am going to use black plus two pantone colors.
| | 03:35 | So I can actually keep gray, because
that's just a shade of the black ink print
| | 03:40 | that's going to print.
| | 03:41 | So in this case here, I really don't
want to change white, I don't want to
| | 03:44 | change black, and I don't want to change gray.
| | 03:47 | So I actually want Illustrator to
automatically protect all those colors.
| | 03:51 | So to do that I am going to click on
this button right here to open up the Color
| | 03:54 | Reduction Options dialog box and
where it says Preserve I am going to tell
| | 03:59 | Illustrator preserve White, preserve
Black, and also preserve any Grays.
| | 04:04 | So now when I click OK, if I scroll
down here I can see that these colors now
| | 04:09 | are not included in the
colors that are going to change;
| | 04:14 | meaning that these colors are
now are currently protected.
| | 04:17 | Now I actually want to protect two other colors.
| | 04:20 | You see I have two objects here,
this rectangle that appears behind the
| | 04:24 | flower and also the rectangle that
appears behind the word Seeds which are
| | 04:28 | already my pantone colors.
| | 04:30 | I don't need to remap
those pantone colors at all.
| | 04:33 | I actually want to keep them and
preserve them in an untouched form.
| | 04:36 | So I'm going to identify those here
inside of my Current Colors by using
| | 04:42 | the magnifying glass.
| | 04:43 | So right now all my colors are dimmed.
| | 04:46 | I am going to start clicking on some
of the colors here and I'll see that
| | 04:48 | this color row right here refers to the spot
color that's being used right now in this area.
| | 04:54 | I don't need that to change.
| | 04:55 | That's fine the way that it is.
| | 04:57 | So I could ask you just turn off the arrow,
so now that color has now also been protected.
| | 05:02 | If I scroll up the list over here and I
click on some other areas of shades of
| | 05:07 | green, not that one, not that one there we go!
| | 05:09 | That one is also right now a pantone
color and I can confirm that, by the
| | 05:13 | way, by double-clicking on the new
color here seeing what that color is
| | 05:16 | actually going to be and if click on
Color Swatches, I see that's already
| | 05:20 | assigned to PANTONE 8343.
| | 05:24 | So I am going to click Cancel and
again I'll protect this color as well.
| | 05:28 | So now what I'm telling the
Illustrator is that all of the other colors right
| | 05:32 | now have the ability to change except
for the ones that I've now protected
| | 05:36 | and in addition the ones that are protected
here, which are blacks, whites, and grays.
| | 05:41 | I've already protected my blacks and my grays.
| | 05:44 | So I am now left with two colors.
| | 05:46 | I need to have all the other colors
that now exist in this artwork, which are
| | 05:50 | all of these different shades here,
purple, so on and so forth, greens, reds.
| | 05:54 | I want all of these now to change to
using either one of those two pantone colors.
| | 06:01 | So where it says.
| | 06:01 | Colors over here right now I have 10 colors.
| | 06:04 | There are 16 total in my design, but
I've protected a total of six of them.
| | 06:09 | So I am left now with 10
colors that I could change.
| | 06:12 | I am now going to select
this number and change it 2.
| | 06:15 | Then I'll hit the Tab key to accept that value.
| | 06:18 | So let's take a look at
what Illustrator just did.
| | 06:20 | Illustrator now took all of the
remaining 10 colors and combined them so that
| | 06:24 | they all now remapped to two colors.
| | 06:27 | Illustrator actually, analyzes all of
the colors that I had left and tries to
| | 06:32 | somehow find which ones have hues that
are close to each other, and in fact, in
| | 06:36 | another movie we are going to go into
detail about how Illustrator actually
| | 06:39 | calculates which colors get grouped together.
| | 06:43 | But we don't necessarily need to go with the
suggestion that Illustrator is making here.
| | 06:47 | So, for example, I have a whole bunch
of different shades of these green colors
| | 06:51 | here that I do think belong together,
but these colors over here maybe belong
| | 06:55 | with this color here.
| | 06:56 | So all I need to do is take these
colors and drag them into this row, because I
| | 07:01 | want these colors to all change into
one color, and then I want these colors to
| | 07:05 | all change into one color.
| | 07:07 | So let's determine now what each of
these colors are now going to turn into.
| | 07:11 | I want all of these colors to
change into one of the Pantone colors.
| | 07:14 | So I am going to double-click here on
the New Color, go to Color Swatches, and
| | 07:18 | remap it to PANTONE 8343. Let me click OK.
| | 07:22 | Next, I want all of these colors to
remap to the other Pantone color which is,
| | 07:27 | if I scroll to the top here, PANTONE 8203.
| | 07:31 | Now I am going to click OK and I've
now just been able to remap these colors
| | 07:35 | to the Pantone colors.
| | 07:37 | But understand here that what I'm
doing is I am taking in this case over here
| | 07:41 | seven different colors that now are in
one color row, and I'm reducing them down
| | 07:46 | to now become one color.
| | 07:50 | In this case here, I am taking these three
colors and reducing them down to one color.
| | 07:54 | I am going to turn off the magnifying
glass here for a minute because I want to
| | 07:57 | look at the result of my artwork here.
| | 07:59 | But I want to explain something here
called the colorization method, because if
| | 08:02 | you think about it what I'm doing is I
am taking seven different colors right
| | 08:06 | here and I'm changing them all to one color.
| | 08:09 | How exactly, should
Illustrator make that conversion?
| | 08:13 | Should all of these seven colors
now become one solid new color?
| | 08:18 | Or maybe Illustrator could somehow
simulate different shades of that color, so
| | 08:23 | it's taking seven different distinct
colors and converting them into seven
| | 08:28 | shades of one new color?
| | 08:30 | So the answer is that actually we have
the ability to choose how Illustrator
| | 08:34 | goes through this conversion
or this color reduction process.
| | 08:38 | Notice that when I move my mouse
over the new color here, a little button
| | 08:42 | appears just to the right of it, and a
little pop-up says that this specifies
| | 08:45 | the colorization method.
| | 08:47 | If click on it, I'll see that
Illustrator offers me five different
| | 08:50 | colorization methods.
| | 08:52 | Something called Exact,
something called Preserved Tints.
| | 08:55 | Something called Scale Tints, and then
I have Tints and Shades and Hue Shift,
| | 09:00 | which right now are both grayed out.
| | 09:02 | The reason why those are grayed out
right now is because I have this option here
| | 09:06 | called Preserve Spot Colors checked on.
| | 09:08 | If I were to uncheck that,
those now would become available.
| | 09:11 | In a minute when we discuss exactly,
what each of these colorization methods are
| | 09:15 | we'll understand why that happens, but
for now I am going to leave Preserve Spot
| | 09:19 | Colors turned on, because I
actually want to preserve my spot colors.
| | 09:22 | After all, my goal in this example is to
actually get at a piece of artwork that
| | 09:27 | contains spot colors inside of it.
| | 09:29 | First let's understand exactly what
the colorization method is doing here.
| | 09:34 | A colorization method determines how
multiple colors appear when they're
| | 09:39 | converted to a single color.
| | 09:41 | So again, before on this color row,
I have now seven distinct colors.
| | 09:47 | I'm telling Illustrator to convert those
seven colors to one brand-new color and
| | 09:52 | I can do that in a variety of different ways.
| | 09:55 | I can convert them exactly meaning take
all seven colors and convert them all to
| | 10:01 | one new exact color.
| | 10:03 | If I choose that option right now and I
click off of this to make it go away and
| | 10:07 | accept that value, take a look
at what happens to my artwork.
| | 10:10 | Notice I no longer have any
ingredients or shades of different colors.
| | 10:14 | I am basically, taking seven different
colors and making them all one new solid color.
| | 10:19 | Let's go back to my colorization method here.
| | 10:21 | If I click on this little button, I can
now choose the Preserve Tint value and
| | 10:26 | then click off of it to accept it.
| | 10:28 | And now I see different result.
| | 10:29 | I kind of get that appearances of some
kind of gradient there and that's because
| | 10:34 | there are already some kind of tint
values that exist inside my documents,
| | 10:38 | specifically these objects
that have color applied to them.
| | 10:41 | So Illustrator is now doing is it's
looking at those colors and if those colors
| | 10:45 | already have tints inside of them, for
example, different shades of color that
| | 10:49 | may appear inside of a gradient,
Illustrator is preserving those tint values.
| | 10:54 | Now let's go to a different method here.
| | 10:56 | I am going to choose Scale Tints which
happens to be the default settings inside
| | 10:59 | of Illustrator and if I now click off
of this to accept it, I see different
| | 11:03 | results in my artwork.
| | 11:05 | What happens in this option is that
Illustrator takes the color that I'm
| | 11:09 | working with right now and actually
takes the darkest color that appears in my
| | 11:13 | row, which right now would be this color, and
it makes this color exactly, match this color.
| | 11:18 | It then generates different tint
values of this color for each of the colors
| | 11:23 | that are lighter than it.
| | 11:24 | Now I am going to go back to the
colorization method popup here and I am
| | 11:28 | going to uncheck Preserve Spot
Colors just so that you can see what these
| | 11:32 | other two options do.
| | 11:33 | Tints and Shades actually does
something a little bit different than what
| | 11:36 | Preserve Tints does.
| | 11:37 | Instead of just creating tints that are
lighter than with the darkest color that
| | 11:42 | appears in that row, Tints and Shades
will also create shades of color or add
| | 11:47 | black to color to make
certain colors appear darker.
| | 11:50 | So if I click off of this now to apply
this, notice now that I see a much darker
| | 11:55 | color appearing here inside of these gradients.
| | 11:57 | Now in many cases this would force spot
colors to now be converted to process.
| | 12:02 | So I will lose my spot colors in such a
case, and that's why I need to uncheck
| | 12:06 | that box to make this option available.
| | 12:08 | Likewise, if I go back to the
colorization method popup here and I choose Hue
| | 12:12 | Shift this will actually also change
the hue of colors inside of my color row.
| | 12:17 | So it may offer a more creative
options for me, but again I'm going to be
| | 12:21 | losing my spot colors.
| | 12:23 | So let's go back over here, click on the
popup, go back to Preserve Spot Colors,
| | 12:28 | and choose the Scale Tints option.
| | 12:31 | To be honest, the two settings that I
use most often and the ones that I focus
| | 12:35 | on the most are, Scale Tints and Exact.
| | 12:39 | Now again the default
setting here would be Scale Tints.
| | 12:41 | If I click on this right now, I get the
beautiful gradients that I've created.
| | 12:45 | But I will tell you that in this case
here I am using metallic spot colors.
| | 12:49 | They may not look that great when I
have different gradients here, and I really
| | 12:52 | want them to pop off of this page.
| | 12:54 | So I want to maintain my design, but I
really want to have them reduced only
| | 12:58 | be using solid colors.
| | 12:59 | So in this case here I am actually
going to use a colorization method of Exact.
| | 13:03 | Now when I click off the window here,
I can see exactly, what my artwork
| | 13:06 | is going to look like.
| | 13:08 | Now I will click OK to accept it.
| | 13:10 | So now I've created three
different versions of my artwork.
| | 13:13 | One uses process colors, one uses
process colors plus two spot colors, and one
| | 13:19 | uses black plus two spot colors.
| | 13:22 | All of this was possible with just a
few clicks of the mouse using the Recolor
| | 13:26 | Artwork feature inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reducing colors intelligently and precisely| 00:00 | It's certainly true that the Recolor
Artwork feature inside of Illustrator can
| | 00:03 | save you a tremendous amount of time
when you need to reduce the number of
| | 00:06 | colors inside of your illustration.
| | 00:09 | However, I'll also tell you that the art
of color reduction is often an art form
| | 00:14 | within itself, and if we take a close
look at exactly how Illustrator goes about
| | 00:18 | reducing the number of colors in
your artwork, you may find it easier to
| | 00:22 | navigate to the settings and get
at the result that you really want.
| | 00:25 | Let me give you an example, I have a
file right here, it's called flower.ai and
| | 00:30 | if I hit Command+A or Ctrl+A to select
my artwork, you can see now that this
| | 00:33 | artwork was created using gradient mesh.
| | 00:36 | Gradient mesh itself is wonderful,
it's great, but it also uses many
| | 00:40 | different shades of colors.
| | 00:42 | So if I ask you wanted to start
modifying colors here, or reducing colors, I
| | 00:47 | may be working with a very large number of
colors that I want to reduce down to a few colors.
| | 00:51 | For example, if I needed to turn this
into just a two color print job I want to
| | 00:55 | use one color maybe for the petals and
then the other color for the stem and the
| | 00:59 | leaves, for example.
| | 01:01 | I may just think that I can just jump
into the recolor artwork feature, change
| | 01:05 | into two colors and be on my way.
| | 01:06 | Well, unfortunately it's not always that simple.
| | 01:10 | Let me show you what you what I mean.
| | 01:11 | I'm going to press Command+A
to select all of my artwork.
| | 01:14 | Again, if you are on Windows that
would be Ctrl+A, and then, I am going
| | 01:17 | to actually click on the color
wheel over here, to open up my Recolor
| | 01:21 | Artwork dialog box.
| | 01:22 | Now you can see that right now in
this Illustration there are currently 34
| | 01:27 | colors in use and if I scroll down
here to the bottom, you'll also see right
| | 01:31 | now, that black and grays are
also right now being protected.
| | 01:35 | Now if I really needed is to be
reduced to two spot colors, and I don't want
| | 01:39 | to waste one of those colors on black, I need to
make sure that black or white are not protected.
| | 01:43 | So I'm actually going to go over here,
click on the options here to not preserve
| | 01:48 | Whites or Blacks or Grays,
actually I'm fine preserving whites.
| | 01:52 | So let's just leave white on there for now;
| | 01:54 | we do want to keep that kind of
my highlight area and click OK.
| | 01:58 | But I now see that these colors now are
available for reducing the number of colors.
| | 02:03 | So now I know I need to get down to two
colors, so where it says, colors here,
| | 02:07 | I'm actually change this to 2 and hit
the tab key, but taka a look at what
| | 02:11 | happens here, almost all the colors
that are right now being used inside of my
| | 02:14 | artwork are all lumped together in one big row.
| | 02:17 | So I have how much of light colors
and I have how much of dark colors then,
| | 02:21 | because I'm not protecting black or
gray, Illustrator kind of lumps all those
| | 02:25 | together here, but I'm not really
going to be using black or gray.
| | 02:28 | So I'm really not that interested in
separating the colors in this way, that's
| | 02:32 | why when I'm reducing a large number of
colors down to a small number of colors,
| | 02:37 | I very really jump directly to the
final number that I need, which in this case
| | 02:41 | would be to 2, and let me explain why.
| | 02:43 | Let's click over here on the top over
here this button which gets the colors
| | 02:47 | from the selected art, that's
going to reload all my colors again.
| | 02:49 | So now I have all my colors,
they're all kind of separated out.
| | 02:52 | Remember, I'm not protecting
black or gray at this point.
| | 02:55 | And before I actually change any of the
number of colors here, let's go over to
| | 02:59 | the Edit button here.
| | 03:01 | Now remember the Edit section of the
dialog box maps all the colors to a color wheel.
| | 03:07 | So all these little circles over
here represent all the colors that are
| | 03:10 | currently being used
inside of this Illustration.
| | 03:13 | Now remember, when we talk about the
HSB color wheel, which what we're using
| | 03:17 | right here we know that we separate
color by Hue, Saturation And Brightness, and
| | 03:22 | one of the primary things that
Illustrator uses to classify colors or to group
| | 03:26 | colors together is by
looking at their hue values.
| | 03:30 | Additionally, Illustrator will also
try to differentiate colors based on
| | 03:34 | their saturation values.
| | 03:35 | So, for example, when I start to
reduce colors, Illustrator sees that all of
| | 03:39 | these colors now are in one general area.
| | 03:42 | So it's going to automatically start to
lump those colors together into a single row.
| | 03:46 | Then I have these three colors here,
which kind of identify or occupy the same
| | 03:50 | area in the color wheel, so
those will get grouped together.
| | 03:52 | Then I have a whole lump of colors that
appear over here, because they're close
| | 03:57 | or similar to each other, Illustrator
will try to group those together and then
| | 04:01 | of course, I have a whole bunch of
blacks and grays here, which have very, very
| | 04:04 | low saturation values and those
get kind of grouped together as well.
| | 04:08 | So if I right now, were to just kind of
take a look at my color wheel and jump
| | 04:12 | immediately to now break all
these colors down into two colors.
| | 04:17 | I would put all these colors which are
currently desaturated into one category,
| | 04:21 | and then I put all of these into one
category as well, because these have higher
| | 04:25 | saturation values, but that's because
I'm forcing Illustrator to go from, in
| | 04:29 | this case, in like 30 colors down to just two.
| | 04:32 | So Illustrator has to make someone a choice.
| | 04:34 | It says, okay, let's put all
saturated colors in one category and all
| | 04:38 | desaturated colors in another category,
because if I look at my hue, I have
| | 04:43 | too many across the spectrum, I can't
really make a good distinction on the
| | 04:46 | colors in that way.
| | 04:48 | So let's go back to the assigned part
of this dialog, you know before, we've
| | 04:52 | either been looking at the edit side of
the dialog or the assigned part of the
| | 04:55 | dialog, and we've kind of been treating
them as like two separate features, but
| | 04:58 | in reality we can use them both to
our advantage at the same time, there's
| | 05:02 | nothing that prevents you from going
back and forth to understand and to see the
| | 05:06 | value of what each of those options bring to me.
| | 05:09 | So, let's for a minute now think
about what we saw in that color wheel?
| | 05:13 | We saw different areas of color, in
fact, just to quickly go back and refresh
| | 05:17 | our memory here, I kind of have one
section here, I have another section here,
| | 05:22 | I've another section here
and another section here.
| | 05:24 | So I had like these four groupings of colors.
| | 05:27 | So instead of jumping down to it right
now to colors, let's go back to assign.
| | 05:32 | So now I am actually going to
change this value here to 5 and hit tab.
| | 05:35 | Let's go back to the Edit part of the
dialog box and see what has happened.
| | 05:39 | Before we had those groupings, and we
can see that Illustrator now uses those
| | 05:43 | groupings to kind of
reduce down to those four areas.
| | 05:46 | I actually have some overlapping areas
here, because I had some colors that also
| | 05:50 | have a very big difference in their
brightness values, but those are in the
| | 05:53 | desaturated areas, right here.
| | 05:55 | Bit I went now from something like 30
colors down to 5, so I still maintain this
| | 06:01 | separation or this area of color
that I now can kind of focus on.
| | 06:05 | If I now go back to the assigned part of
a dialog box, I can see that I have all
| | 06:09 | these bright colors in one section.
| | 06:11 | I have another color row that has these
colors inside of it, then I have these colors.
| | 06:15 | So the separation that makes a lot more sense.
| | 06:17 | Now, I can decide how to further reduce the
number of colors inside of my Illustration.
| | 06:22 | So I may decide that these colors here,
these two color rows are pretty similar,
| | 06:26 | so I'm going to take this entire color
row, I can click on this little icon on
| | 06:29 | the far left here, and click and
drag it, up into this color row.
| | 06:33 | So now I am starting to manually
perform this color reduction process.
| | 06:38 | I may decide that I actually want all
these shades of black and gray to be
| | 06:41 | merged with this color and then convert
them also to be using the lighter color.
| | 06:46 | So now, I've basically grouped all the
colors down more in a manual process.
| | 06:50 | So I started out by reducing it down,
closer to what my final goal was going to
| | 06:54 | be, and then I manually made some
adjustments once it was more easier to do so.
| | 07:00 | Now I can actually change the colors
themselves, I maybe need a darker color for
| | 07:04 | this color right here, so may be I
choose something little bit darker like that.
| | 07:08 | And then for the lighter color here,
may be choose something in the blues;
| | 07:12 | let's do something totally psychedelic
here, and create something like that.
| | 07:15 | But again, I have much more control
over the process when I don't jump directly
| | 07:20 | to the final number of colors that I
need, but instead, I kind of take steps
| | 07:24 | towards that direction, which allows
me to use Illustrator to help me get to
| | 07:29 | that goal in a far more
precise and controlled manner.
| | 07:33 | Now that you have a better
understanding of how Illustrator goes about reducing
| | 07:36 | colors, I think that you'll have a
much easier time when you need to reduce
| | 07:40 | colors in your projects.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Changing the colors within patterns| 00:00 | Working with patterns has always been a
challenge inside of Illustrator, both in
| | 00:05 | creating patterns and also modifying them.
| | 00:09 | Now in truth, creating repeating
patterns is an art form within itself and it's
| | 00:14 | probably something that justifies an
entire title on its own, and maybe in the
| | 00:18 | future insider trading title,
we'll actually focus on that topic.
| | 00:23 | However, here, since we're talking
about color, let's discuss the ways that we
| | 00:26 | can actually modify colors
that appear within patterns.
| | 00:30 | There are actually two ways to accomplish this.
| | 00:33 | One way is to the use of Global
Colors, the other way is using the
| | 00:36 | Recolor Artwork feature;
| | 00:38 | let's take a look at both of these.
| | 00:40 | I have a document here called patterns.ai.
| | 00:43 | I'm actually going to move these over to the
side and maybe zoom it just a little bit here.
| | 00:46 | Let's focus on this pattern right here,
it's a single rectangle that's full with
| | 00:51 | a pattern and that pattern here is
called Flower Round, I have on the bottom
| | 00:55 | here these patterns which
is called the Flower Square.
| | 00:59 | But let's focus here on just this top one here.
| | 01:02 | Right now, I don't have any swatches
inside of my document, maybe somebody else
| | 01:06 | created this pattern and I got it from
another file, and I'm bringing it down to
| | 01:10 | this document that I want
to make some changes to it.
| | 01:12 | Well, a lot of people find they need
to take this swatch itself out from the
| | 01:16 | Swatches panel and drag it onto your
artboard, which now creates the physical artwork.
| | 01:21 | Then I would make some changes to the
color and then drag them back into the
| | 01:25 | Swatches panel, either replacing the
original swatch or maybe creating another one.
| | 01:30 | But we'll see it is so much easier to
do inside of Illustrator when we take
| | 01:32 | advantage of the features
that we've learned so far.
| | 01:35 | For example, I can select
just this rectangle right now;
| | 01:39 | it's a regular rectangle
that's filled with a pattern.
| | 01:41 | But if I come down to the Swatches
panel and I choose to create a new Swatch
| | 01:45 | group, and let's say I call this one
Round, I can choose to create the swatches
| | 01:51 | from my Selected Artwork, and because
there are colors now inside of my pattern,
| | 01:56 | Illustrator will automatically
create swatches for each of those colors.
| | 01:59 | I can also choose at the same time
to convert all my Process to Global.
| | 02:04 | Now if I click OK, I now see all the
colors that are used inside of that pattern.
| | 02:09 | So now I'm going to deselect my artwork,
and now I'll say I want to focus on
| | 02:12 | making some changes to this pattern.
| | 02:14 | I'm actually going to zoom a little bit
closer here to his artwork so we can see
| | 02:17 | it better on the screen.
| | 02:19 | And I don't have any artwork selected
right now, nothing selected, but I can
| | 02:22 | come to the swatches here.
| | 02:24 | For example, I'm going to double-click
on this swatch right here and I'm going
| | 02:27 | to click on the Preview button.
| | 02:29 | Now as I modify the sliders, you
can actually see that the color is
| | 02:33 | changing within the pattern.
| | 02:36 | If I'm happy with this, I'm now
going to click OK, and notice that two
| | 02:41 | things have happened.
| | 02:42 | First of all I've changed the color
of this swatch that appears inside of
| | 02:46 | that Swatch group, but Illustrator
now also created a new pattern swatch
| | 02:51 | called Flower Round 1.
| | 02:53 | I still have the original Flower
Round pattern, and I haven't lost that,
| | 02:58 | because Illustrator doesn't want to
have me lose my original pattern, in case
| | 03:02 | if I want to go back to it.
| | 03:04 | So by modifying the Global Color, it
updates inside the pattern, but inside the
| | 03:09 | copy of that pattern.
| | 03:11 | This way I can select the rectangle and
go back to my original pattern or click
| | 03:15 | on the one that I just modified.
| | 03:17 | Let's take a look at another way that
we can modify colors inside of patterns,
| | 03:20 | so I'm actually going to scroll down
here to the bottom and I'm going to select
| | 03:23 | this rectangle right here.
| | 03:25 | This is filled with yet a different pattern.
| | 03:28 | This pattern over here is called Flower
Square, and I do not have any swatches
| | 03:32 | for it, which is fine, because I'm now
going to use the recolor artwork method
| | 03:36 | in order to modify colors.
| | 03:38 | So with this rectangle selected, again,
it's filled with just the pattern, I'm
| | 03:42 | going to click on the color chip
wheel over here to open up the Recolor
| | 03:44 | Artwork dialog box.
| | 03:46 | I see all the colors that are currently
used inside the pattern, and here if I
| | 03:50 | want to modify one of the colors, I can
either double-click here on this button
| | 03:53 | to create a new color for that, click
OK, and I can see now that change was
| | 03:57 | made, or I can use this button over
here to actually randomly change the order
| | 04:01 | of the colors inside the pattern,
that one was pretty interesting.
| | 04:05 | And notice id I click OK at this point,
I've now changed the pattern itself.
| | 04:10 | Notice however that in this example,
Illustrator did not create a new pattern
| | 04:14 | swatch for me, and that's because
I'm not working with Global Colors.
| | 04:18 | Global Colors will of course force
Illustrator to make that change across the
| | 04:22 | entire document, but because here I do
not create Global Colors first, I was
| | 04:27 | able to modify my pattern
here right inside of my document.
| | 04:30 | So if you do a lot of work with
patterns inside of Illustrator these techniques
| | 04:34 | should help you modify colors within
them, both quickly and efficiently.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using color groups to your advantage| 00:00 | At this point you should be familiar
already with what you can do with the
| | 00:04 | Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 00:06 | However, what I want to do now is kind
of bring everything that we've learned up
| | 00:10 | until this point, altogether.
| | 00:12 | Let's bring things full circle and
really understand the benefits now of
| | 00:16 | everything that we've done.
| | 00:17 | For example, we spoke about how important it
is to organize your colors into color groups.
| | 00:23 | If we take a look at this document
here, it's called artwork.ai, I have my
| | 00:27 | Swatches panel open, and you can see
that I already have several different color
| | 00:30 | groups that exist inside of this document.
| | 00:32 | Some of them have just regular plain
process colors inside of them and some of
| | 00:37 | them actually have some
pantone colors or spark colors.
| | 00:40 | Now I have some artwork on my page and I want
to able to make some changes to that artwork.
| | 00:45 | And I want to show you now how easy it
is to combine this concept of working
| | 00:49 | with groups and this
concept of recoloring artwork.
| | 00:52 | Until this point we have been
recoloring things one color at a time.
| | 00:57 | We have either been swapping out
one color for another, or we have been
| | 01:00 | reducing colors by taking maybe five or even
ten colors and turning them into one new color.
| | 01:06 | However, one of the real benefits of
working with Illustrator is your ability to
| | 01:10 | actually change multiple
colors all at the same time.
| | 01:14 | The only way to do that is through the
use of groups, as we have set up here
| | 01:18 | inside of this document.
| | 01:19 | So let me give you an example.
| | 01:21 | I am going to zoom-in, and adjust this
rectangle over here, which is filled with a pattern.
| | 01:25 | We'll move it over here to the side of
my document and click on it right now is
| | 01:29 | select it and if I choose to recolor
artwork right now, by clicking on the color
| | 01:34 | chip wheel, I'll bring up the Recolor
Artwork dialog box and I'll see that on
| | 01:39 | the right side of this dialog, I now
have a list of all of the groups that
| | 01:43 | appear inside of my Swatches panel.
| | 01:46 | We really haven't focused too much on
this area here yet in the training, but in
| | 01:50 | this video we are going to see its full value.
| | 01:53 | You see, this really isn't so much as
just simply a list of my color groups;
| | 01:57 | it's a way for me to automatically
tell Illustrator to take all of the colors
| | 02:01 | that appear within a certain group and
instantly recolor my existing artwork
| | 02:06 | with all those colors.
| | 02:07 | So again, let's review what we have here.
| | 02:10 | I have my Current Colors in my
document, and I have what colors those are
| | 02:14 | now going to become.
| | 02:15 | And remember that by default,
Illustrator always remaps each color back to
| | 02:19 | itself, because it doesn't know yet
what colors I want to change it to.
| | 02:23 | I also know that I can double-click on
this New icon here to change the color
| | 02:27 | for just that one color row.
| | 02:30 | However, watch what happens here.
| | 02:31 | I am going to go over here to where it
says Color Groups, and I will come down
| | 02:35 | to over here where it says
Watermelon, and I'll click on it.
| | 02:38 | Take a look at what just happened.
| | 02:40 | Illustrator took the four colors that
appear inside of this Watermelon group,
| | 02:45 | and put those colors all at the
same time into the New color section.
| | 02:50 | That instantly recolored my pattern
to now use the colors found inside the
| | 02:55 | Watermelon color group, instead of the colors
that already exist in that piece of artwork.
| | 03:00 | So what I have just did now is with
one click, I haven't changed one color, I
| | 03:05 | actually changed four colors all at once.
| | 03:07 | Let me give you another example.
| | 03:09 | If I click on the Lollipop 1 group
right now, notice that the artwork is now
| | 03:14 | going to update and change, because
Illustrator took the four colors inside of
| | 03:18 | this color group and put them
over here for the new colors.
| | 03:21 | So now, Illustrator is taking my
existing colors and remapping them to the
| | 03:25 | colors that belong to this group.
| | 03:27 | Now if you are familiar with the
concept of color ways, which is the way that
| | 03:31 | many apparel designers work, you may
have a print that uses four different
| | 03:35 | colors inside of it, meaning, you may
have a single color way with multiple
| | 03:39 | colors in it and I now have the
ability to switch between one color way and
| | 03:44 | another color way, even though there
are many colors inside of that color way.
| | 03:48 | So I could think of one group or one
color way, as one item, even though there
| | 03:53 | are many, many different colors inside of it.
| | 03:56 | What happens though, in the case
where I currently have four colors here?
| | 04:00 | There are really five colors in this
pattern but that's because it's, including
| | 04:03 | white and right now white is protected.
| | 04:06 | So I'm really dealing here with four colors.
| | 04:08 | So I was working with Watermelon
or Lollipop 1, which each have four
| | 04:12 | colors inside of it.
| | 04:13 | But let's say I want to
recolor my artwork using Lollipop 2.
| | 04:16 | Well, Lollipop 2 only has three colors
inside of it, so what's going to happen
| | 04:21 | with that fourth color.
| | 04:22 | The answer is that Illustrator is
going to automatically reduce the number of
| | 04:26 | colors in my artwork to match the
number of colors inside of my color group.
| | 04:31 | So when I click on Lollipop 2,
Illustrator is going to automatically combine two
| | 04:36 | colors into one new color, so that now
I am actually changing my artwork not
| | 04:41 | only to a new color way or a new
color group, but also reducing the colors
| | 04:45 | automatically to fit to that color group.
| | 04:48 | Now if I click back on Watermelon,
Illustrator will return this back to four
| | 04:51 | colors again, but as I click on each
of these color groups, Illustrator will
| | 04:55 | automatically make the adjustments for me.
| | 04:58 | Way back in this training when we first
spoke about things like color groups, I
| | 05:02 | discussed how useful it would be to
even create color groups that contain a
| | 05:05 | single color inside of it.
| | 05:06 | Notice over here I have two color groups,
one called Red 032, and one called Violet.
| | 05:12 | Well, these color groups only
contain a single color inside of that.
| | 05:15 | So what's the use of putting them into a group?
| | 05:17 | The answer is that because they are in
a group, they appear in this list over
| | 05:21 | here and if I actually want to turn
this pattern to be just a one colored job,
| | 05:26 | I can actually just click on this
group and now my pattern is simply going to
| | 05:30 | be a one color pattern.
| | 05:32 | Notice over here that all four colors
that are currently using that pattern, are
| | 05:35 | now going to be reduced to one pantone color.
| | 05:39 | Because my colorization method is set
to Scale Tints, I am seeing different
| | 05:43 | shades of that one pantone color, but
of course, I could also choose to go to
| | 05:47 | Exact, and now I get one solid color.
| | 05:51 | Let me click Cancel here, and
let's take a look at another example.
| | 05:54 | I am going to come over to this
piece of artwork here where we are using
| | 05:56 | this for packaging.
| | 05:57 | It currently has several
different colors inside of it.
| | 05:59 | I am just going to zoom-out just a bit
here and move it over to this side and I
| | 06:03 | will select it, and I'll choose to
open up the Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 06:08 | Now in this example, if I scroll down
here to the bottom, I will see that blacks
| | 06:12 | and grays and white are not protected.
| | 06:14 | Well, I can choose over here to click on this,
and choose to protect blacks and grays as well.
| | 06:20 | And now when I click on any of these,
for example, Red 032, I am now reducing
| | 06:24 | this to, well, effectively be a two color job.
| | 06:27 | It would have blacks and shades of
grays and they will also now have red.
| | 06:32 | I may decide I wanted to be completely
just a two color job with two pantone colors.
| | 06:36 | In that case, I could go back to this
setting here and choose not to preserve
| | 06:41 | anything, except for white.
| | 06:43 | Now I click OK and I choose, for
example, 2 Color I've now recolored this
| | 06:47 | artwork using two spark colors.
| | 06:51 | And of course, I have the ability to
swap the order of those colors at any time
| | 06:54 | by just moving these colors up and down.
| | 06:56 | Now I am going to click Cancel here
one more time and I want to give you one
| | 06:59 | other example of how useful this can be.
| | 07:01 | Let's kind of move over here to this
example, let me zoom out just a bit, and
| | 07:06 | I will select this card over here, and
I'll open up the Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 07:11 | In this case here, I want to make
sure that I'm only preserving white.
| | 07:16 | Now when I click OK, I can convert this
to a one color job with one click of the
| | 07:20 | mouse, but I can also use this as a way
to experiment or try to become inspired
| | 07:27 | by trying out different color combinations.
| | 07:29 | So, for example, I am going
to choose Watermelon here.
| | 07:32 | Now by default, Illustrator applies the
colors in the order in which they appear
| | 07:36 | inside of the Color Group.
| | 07:38 | However, once I have applied the
Color Group here, I can come down to the
| | 07:41 | Randomize button and basically
randomize the order in which those colors
| | 07:45 | appear in my design.
| | 07:46 | For example, I really may
like this look right here.
| | 07:50 | This is also one of the reasons why we
have some buttons at the top over here,
| | 07:54 | because I have the ability to take my
existing colors right now that I'm seeing
| | 07:58 | on my screen and create a
new Color Group based on that.
| | 08:01 | It's the same colors that are actually
available inside of the Watermelon Color
| | 08:05 | Group, but they just
appear in a different order.
| | 08:08 | Likewise, I can also choose Delete any Color
Groups here as well by clicking on this icon.
| | 08:14 | So just by loading a whole bunch of
Color Groups into my document, I can open up
| | 08:18 | Recolor Artwork and start to just
clicking through some of these files, trying
| | 08:21 | to get some inspiration;
| | 08:22 | that looks pretty nice.
| | 08:24 | May be try a few variations of that;
| | 08:25 | see what that looks like, and if I
like what I'm seeing, I can simply click
| | 08:30 | OK, or I can create a new Color
Group and continue trying additional
| | 08:34 | variations of colors.
| | 08:36 | So if the concept of Color Groups was
not really that interesting to you before,
| | 08:40 | I think at this point you really see
the value of what they add to working
| | 08:44 | inside of Illustrator.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Color ConversionConverting color to grayscale| 00:00 | While it's great to be working inside
of this big world of color there are many
| | 00:04 | times when we actually can only
print our file using black so we need to
| | 00:08 | sometimes convert artwork that already
uses many colors into something called
| | 00:12 | grayscale just different shades of
gray that perhaps represent all these
| | 00:16 | different shades of color.
| | 00:18 | Now using a technology that exists
inside of illustrator we actually have a
| | 00:23 | variety of different ways to go about
converting color to gray scale and in
| | 00:27 | this movie I want to share two of them
with you, one of them is pretty much a
| | 00:30 | one click solution, simply select
all of your artwork I am going to press
| | 00:34 | Command+A, I am on a Mac, if
you are Windows, that will be Ctrl+A,
| | 00:37 | then go to the edit menu, choose
edit colors and then choose convert to grayscale.
| | 00:45 | When you do that you'll see that all
of your artwork now gets converted to
| | 00:48 | different shades of gray.
| | 00:49 | Now illustrator actually has had this
command for many...many years however up
| | 00:53 | until illustrator CS3, when Adobe
added this new color engine, that function
| | 00:58 | didn't work on things like
radiance or patterns or symbols.
| | 01:02 | However, this command works on
everything with the exception of course of images.
| | 01:06 | If you want to go ahead and convert
images to grayscale that's something that
| | 01:10 | you still need to do inside
of a program like Photoshop.
| | 01:12 | However, this is a real, quick and
dirty way to just simply get your color
| | 01:16 | artwork into grayscale form.
| | 01:18 | I am going to press Cmd+Z
to undo, because I want to show you yet
| | 01:22 | another method of converting color
artwork into grayscale and to do that we are
| | 01:26 | going to use the Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 01:28 | So with all my artwork still selected
I am going to click on the color chip
| | 01:32 | wheel to open up Recolor Artwork and
let's look at the edit side of the dialog
| | 01:35 | here for just a moment, remember that
right now illustrator is displaying all
| | 01:39 | the colors that appear inside of my
artwork as these little circles that are
| | 01:42 | mapped onto the wheel of color.
| | 01:44 | We also know just a little bit
more about how this color wheel works.
| | 01:48 | Colors that appear in the center of
the circle are completely desaturated, in
| | 01:52 | other words that means that I've added
enough white to my color to completely
| | 01:56 | obliterate the color itself, all I
am left with is a total value or the
| | 02:00 | brightness value that's left inside of
that color, so if you think about it if I
| | 02:04 | were to take all of my colors
here and completely desaturate them.
| | 02:08 | I would just be left with their
brightness values or in reality just different
| | 02:13 | shades of black, now of course you
would be very tedious of me so now I have to
| | 02:16 | go to each of my colors and perform
this function but I can use the Global
| | 02:21 | Settings to do this for me.
| | 02:22 | I will come over here to this pop up
right here and I'll choose to switch to the
| | 02:26 | global adjust settings and notice over
here I have a saturation slider, if I
| | 02:31 | drag the slider to the right I
start adding saturation to my color.
| | 02:34 | Notice that all the circles start moving
to the outside of the color wheel there
| | 02:37 | but if I click and drag it to the
left I am desaturating my color.
| | 02:40 | See how they are all being drawn to the
center, if I go all the way to the left
| | 02:45 | I've completely desaturated my artwork
and all I am left with right now are the
| | 02:49 | brightness values, so I click OK by
desaturating my artwork, I've now gotten a
| | 02:55 | grayscale conversion that I can now work with.
| | 02:58 | You know many of you might be familiar
with this method inside of Photoshop, a
| | 03:02 | quick and easy way to actually get a
grayscale version of your photo inside of
| | 03:05 | Photoshop, it's just simply
desaturated photo and we're doing the exact same
| | 03:09 | thing here inside of illustrator.
| | 03:12 | So there is a two quick methods to
get grayscale versions of your artwork,
| | 03:15 | either simply convert everything to
grayscale or use the desaturate setting
| | 03:20 | which is part of the global adjust is
inside of the Recolor Artwork dialog box.
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| Converting to grayscale with the Grayscale color group| 00:00 | In the previous movie we discussed how
we actually take our color artwork and
| | 00:04 | convert it to different shades of gray,
however I'll tell you that on my own
| | 00:08 | experience I find that by using the
regular grayscale conversion or even
| | 00:12 | desaturating colors leaves you with
kind of a washed out look and that's
| | 00:17 | simply because each of the colors themselves
get translated to different shades of gray.
| | 00:21 | So you usually end up with lots of
lighter shades and you don't really get that
| | 00:25 | punchy, contrasty look that you might
be going for, so let me share with you
| | 00:30 | yet another way to convert colorized
artwork into grayscale form but instead
| | 00:36 | using a grayscale group, you know
every time that you create a new document
| | 00:40 | inside of illustrator.
| | 00:41 | I will just show you right here, I am
going to press Cmd+N to make a new document.
| | 00:44 | I used a print profile right here and
click OK, there is a color group here
| | 00:48 | called grays, it's just simply how much
it swatches that are set to like a 100%
| | 00:53 | gray, 100% black, 90, 80, so on and so forth.
| | 00:57 | This grayscale group also appears in
other profiles so if I hit Cmd+N now and
| | 01:02 | choose, for example, the Web profile I
will also see that there are grays here
| | 01:06 | in this one as well, let me close
this document, let's go back to this file
| | 01:09 | here called grayscale2.
| | 01:11 | Notice over here I have this
grayscale group loaded inside of the swatch
| | 01:15 | library, now if you have already worked
in a document and you've emptied all of
| | 01:19 | different swatches that exist in that
file and you no longer have this grays
| | 01:23 | color group inside of your document.
| | 01:25 | Let me show you a quick way that you
can actually get it, you can go over here
| | 01:28 | to the Library menu, go to where it says
Defaults Swatches and then choose BASIC CMYK.
| | 01:34 | You will over here that the color group
exists and you can simply click on that
| | 01:37 | folder to now bring it into your
swatch's library inside of your document and of
| | 01:42 | course you can do the same thing for
RGB documents, you will simply load the
| | 01:46 | default basic RGB file.
| | 01:48 | Now once you have this color group
loaded inside of your document, we can use it
| | 01:52 | to recolor our artwork.
| | 01:53 | We already know how to use a Recolor
Artwork dialog box that allows us to take
| | 01:58 | existing colors and remap them to
other colors but if we have a group of
| | 02:02 | grayscale shades, what we can do is
we can actually our colors to different
| | 02:07 | values of grayscale and this will
give us more control over how the colors
| | 02:12 | actually turn into grays, so let's
start out by actually comparing how this
| | 02:16 | might work against other methods.
| | 02:18 | So I am going to start off by selecting
the middle artwork right over here and
| | 02:22 | I'll go to the Edit menu, I'll choose
Edit Colors and then Convert to Grayscale
| | 02:27 | so this where I get kind
of that washed out version.
| | 02:29 | My original caller is here on the left,
my grayscale version which I use by just
| | 02:34 | simply using the command, right now
is in the middle and now I am going to
| | 02:37 | select the artwork on the right and
let's use the color group now to turn this
| | 02:41 | into a grayscale file.
| | 02:43 | Let's go to the color chip wheel here,
I am going to click on it, it opens up
| | 02:46 | the Recolor Artwork dialog box, I am
simply going to move it over here to left
| | 02:49 | so I could see what I'm looking at
right now on the screen and I am just going
| | 02:53 | to click on the Gray's color group,
what's happening is that all my colors right
| | 02:57 | now are being remapped to
specific shades of black.
| | 03:00 | Now what I can do is I can click on the
Random button over here to just mix up
| | 03:04 | exactly how those grayscale colors are
being remapped to my artwork, but as you
| | 03:09 | can see because I'm dealing with
distinct shades over here like a black color
| | 03:13 | and 90% black and an 80% black.
| | 03:15 | I'm getting a much more punchier or
contrasty result, now in addition of course
| | 03:19 | I can go back and just reload this.
| | 03:21 | They all get loaded from dark to light
but I could manually start to go through
| | 03:25 | like, for example, these are light
colors here, I can actually drag a lighter
| | 03:29 | shade of gray to this one.
| | 03:31 | I can combine these to be a darker
shade and maybe bring these up over here,
| | 03:34 | let's take this darker shade and
bring it down to this one and now I can
| | 03:38 | customize to, you see here I have a
darker color that is going to a light gray,
| | 03:41 | I don't want that so I can this into here.
| | 03:43 | So now I could start to really Recolor
Artwork using specific shades of color
| | 03:48 | instead of just converting
everything to one wholesale shade of gray.
| | 03:51 | Let's maybe bring this color down
over here, we will scroll down my list a
| | 03:55 | more over here, I see that I has some dark
colors that I actually going to go into white.
| | 03:59 | Let's actually grab this color right
here and this color and move them to there.
| | 04:04 | Bring these colors together and drag
this darker color down here, so now when I
| | 04:08 | click okay, I am going to choose yes to
rearrange the order of my color groups.
| | 04:12 | I see a very different result, these are
all still using shades of gray but I've
| | 04:17 | created a very high contrast version by
using specific shades of gray instead of
| | 04:22 | just turning the whole thing into one
conversion, in other words I have much
| | 04:27 | more control over how these colors turn
to grayscale, whereas before it's just
| | 04:31 | one wholesale solution.
| | 04:33 | So go ahead and experiment with
these different ways of converting color
| | 04:36 | artwork into grayscale.
| | 04:38 | I think you'll discover that you have a
whole new set of options in front of you
| | 04:42 | and you'll get some results
that I think might surprise you.
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| Converting grayscale to color| 00:00 | So we've seen examples where we can
take artwork that already is in color and
| | 00:04 | convert it into different shades of gray,
however how many times have you been
| | 00:08 | faced with the exact reverse, you have
artwork that's grayscale and now you want
| | 00:13 | to convert it to a colorized version.
| | 00:15 | That is something that actually is
quite common when you're dealing with charts
| | 00:18 | and graphs inside of illustrator,
because by default whenever illustrator
| | 00:21 | generates a chart it uses different
shades of gray to denote each of the
| | 00:27 | different categories.
| | 00:28 | What's great about the Recolor Artwork
feature inside of illustrator is that it
| | 00:33 | simply lists all the colors that exist
in your file and each shade of gray shows
| | 00:37 | up as a different item in each of the
Color rose meaning I have the ability to
| | 00:42 | easily change different shades of
gray into different distinct colors.
| | 00:47 | The same way that I could turn one set
of colors into another set, so again as
| | 00:51 | long as I have some way to differentiate
different shades, I have the ability to
| | 00:56 | convert those different
shades into anything that I want.
| | 00:59 | In this case I would want to convert
them into colors I mean, the chart right
| | 01:02 | now does not look that interesting,
it's all different shades of gray.
| | 01:06 | But what I'll do is I will simply use
my regular selection tool to click and
| | 01:09 | select the graph because the graph is
a large group here and I'll come to the
| | 01:14 | color chip wheel here, it has open up
the Recolor Artwork dialog box, I will it
| | 01:17 | move it here to the side.
| | 01:18 | You will see that if I just simply
click on the color group here called
| | 01:21 | flowers, illustrator automatically remaps all
those colors to the different shades of gray.
| | 01:27 | Now one thing that I will also point
out over here is that you can see that
| | 01:31 | all the colors are of course added in the order
in which they appear inside of the color group.
| | 01:34 | But right now my current colors here are kind
of listed from darker colors to lighter colors;
| | 01:39 | you will notice there is a little icon
right over here next to the word new.
| | 01:43 | Right now, it says Custom, this means
that the order in which the new colors
| | 01:46 | are added to my artwork appear in the
order in which they appear inside of the group.
| | 01:51 | But I could choose lightness, for
example, dark to light, so my darker colors
| | 01:55 | get put on top and my lighter colors
get put on the bottom and now it looks a
| | 01:59 | little bit more easier to read because
I have my number's and my other values
| | 02:03 | that were darker shades of gray
that now have become the darker colors.
| | 02:07 | So it's another quick way for me to
take my color group and assign colors using
| | 02:13 | a different method so, I can now click
okay and I will choose to click yes over
| | 02:17 | here to save my color group changes and
you can see that now with one click of
| | 02:21 | a mouse I have taken artwork that was
started out as grayscale and now has
| | 02:25 | become filled with color.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finding spot equivalents of process colors| 00:00 | One of the things that the Recolor
Artwork feature inside of Illustrator can do
| | 00:04 | is help you find color matches.
| | 00:07 | Let me explain what I mean by that.
| | 00:09 | Say maybe you have a design in front of
you, I have this file right now called
| | 00:12 | matching 1, and let's just take a look right
now at just this piece of art work right here.
| | 00:16 | If I select this right now and let's
say I want to find all the colors used in
| | 00:19 | this design, I can create a new Swatch
group here by clicking on the New Color
| | 00:23 | Group icon, and I will call this one,
just Design for now, and if I click OK, I
| | 00:30 | now see all the colors used in that artwork.
| | 00:32 | Now these colors are all process colors
granted they are global process colors,
| | 00:37 | but this would mean I need to print
this artwork using process colors.
| | 00:40 | Let's say right now I get a phone
call and my client actually wants to use
| | 00:45 | pantone colors to print this.
| | 00:47 | Now I want my artwork to look the same.
| | 00:49 | I just want to find basically the
closest matching pantone colors to my
| | 00:54 | existing process colors.
| | 00:57 | Now the way that designers would do
this in the past is they'd actually hold
| | 01:00 | up their color book, their pantone
color book to the screen and start flipping
| | 01:04 | through the book and try to find colors
that match what you're seeing on the screen.
| | 01:08 | However, now that we understand
what Recolor Artwork can do inside of
| | 01:12 | Illustrator, maybe we can
have it do all that work for us?
| | 01:16 | So I want to take you to the steps of
how you would go about starting out with
| | 01:21 | a process color and then finding the
nearest match in the Pantone Library for that.
| | 01:26 | The truth is I don't even need
the artwork at this point anymore;
| | 01:29 | I could work specifically with just
the Swatch group that I've created.
| | 01:34 | So here is what I am going to do.
| | 01:35 | I am going to double-click on the Folder
icon itself here inside of the Swatches
| | 01:39 | panel for this Design group.
| | 01:42 | Remember, when I do that, I get the
Edit Colors dialog box, I basically see all
| | 01:47 | the colors that appear inside of my
Color Group that are now mapped onto the
| | 01:51 | overall color wheel, and this is going
to be an important thing to understand
| | 01:54 | about what we're about to do.
| | 01:56 | That Color wheel right now is the
HSB color wheel that shows me the
| | 01:59 | entire visual spectrum.
| | 02:01 | At least the colors that
appear within the HSB gamut.
| | 02:04 | But in your mind, let's try to
separate these little circles here from the
| | 02:09 | overall world of color beneath this.
| | 02:11 | You know way we spoke about this
analogy where maybe this is why Google maps,
| | 02:16 | where each of these little circles
here, I like those little pushpins that
| | 02:19 | identify a certain address on the map,
and then the circling here in the
| | 02:23 | background is actually the map itself.
| | 02:25 | What would happen if I would have left
the pushpins the way that they are, but
| | 02:30 | just move the map from behind it and
completely delete it and instead swap in a
| | 02:35 | whole different map?
| | 02:37 | The pushpins themselves
would now point to new locations.
| | 02:41 | But they themselves have not moved at all.
| | 02:44 | If we can visualize that, we can
understand this next step that I am about to do
| | 02:48 | inside of this dialog box.
| | 02:51 | Back in Chapter 4, we spoke about this feature
inside of Illustrator called the Color Guide.
| | 02:56 | It allowed you to choose a color, and
then it would recommend other colors that
| | 03:00 | would work well with that color.
| | 03:01 | But we also found out that there was a
way for us to limit which colors can be
| | 03:06 | used inside of the Color Guide.
| | 03:08 | We were able to take our own
custom libraries, for example, and feed
| | 03:12 | those colors into the color guide to better
control what we get out of the Color Guide.
| | 03:17 | That icon that controls that feature in
the color guide is also available here
| | 03:21 | inside of the Edit Color dialog box.
| | 03:24 | So, for example, I am going to
click on this icon right here.
| | 03:27 | I am going to see a list of libraries
that have access to, but we're dealing
| | 03:31 | here with pantone colors.
| | 03:32 | I want to get my closest
conversions here to pantone colors.
| | 03:36 | I am going to go to Color Books and
I will choose Pantone solid coated.
| | 03:40 | Take a very close look to what's
going to happen now to my color wheel when
| | 03:44 | I choose this option.
| | 03:45 | See how it completely changed, before
I had this nice beautiful smooth color,
| | 03:51 | now it looks all chunky.
| | 03:53 | Why did that happen?
| | 03:54 | The answer is, is that by limiting this
dialog box or this color wheel to only
| | 04:00 | use pantone colors, I have completely
removed the HSB color wheel and I have now
| | 04:06 | slid into it's place, the pantone colors,
but because Illustrator uses this same
| | 04:11 | method of describing color,
meaning it uses the Color Wheel.
| | 04:15 | The pantone colors are arranged in a
way to closely match the way that HSB
| | 04:20 | Color Wheel worked.
| | 04:22 | Now, my colors themselves, these
little dots over here, haven't moved.
| | 04:26 | So now they are simply on top of or
pointing to the colors that appear beneath
| | 04:32 | it now however, are no longer RGB
colors, they are now Pantone colors.
| | 04:38 | Instead of changing my colors, I've
changed how those colors are mapped to some
| | 04:42 | other color model, and I've gotten my
closest possible equivalence of my colors.
| | 04:48 | How do I know that?
| | 04:49 | Well, just come over here right now.
| | 04:51 | I haven't done anything yet, but all I
have done is I have just simply changed
| | 04:54 | what the color wheel currently represents.
| | 04:57 | Before the color will represent it,
all colors within the gamut, now I have
| | 05:01 | limited that color wheel
to only show pantone colors.
| | 05:04 | So I am now going to come over here to
this icon here, to create a New Color Group.
| | 05:08 | The colors that appear inside of this
Color Group are now the closest match to
| | 05:13 | the colors that I had before.
| | 05:15 | However, these are now all pantone
colors, because that's what these colors
| | 05:19 | are now representing.
| | 05:21 | So if I click OK, what I now have in
my document is my original color group,
| | 05:26 | which has its own process colors.
| | 05:28 | But now I have another color group
which contains the closest possible matches
| | 05:33 | in the Pantone Library to
all those process colors.
| | 05:37 | Now what's interesting about what I
just did is, I have actually performed that
| | 05:40 | conversion on multiple colors at once.
| | 05:42 | Notice that I've also done that without
damaging any of my artwork, because all
| | 05:47 | I did was now create a new
copy of this color group.
| | 05:51 | But let me show you how I might
do that though if I wanted to work
| | 05:53 | specifically on Artwork.
| | 05:55 | I could take let's say this artwork
right here, select this item, go to my
| | 05:59 | Recolor Artwork dialog box, go to Edit
Colors, change the colors that appear
| | 06:06 | in that color wheel by limiting it to
the Pantone solid coated library, and
| | 06:11 | then simply pressing OK.
| | 06:13 | Now all the colors used in this
artwork are pantone colors, and they're the
| | 06:18 | closest matches to colors that we used
previously which were process colors.
| | 06:22 | For example, I use my direct Selections
tool and click on this background right
| | 06:26 | here and I will see that it's
currently now filled with Pantone 365.
| | 06:31 | So with just a few clicks of the
mouse, I'm able to find accurate pantone
| | 06:35 | equivalents of my process
colors. But I'll tell you;
| | 06:38 | this goes way beyond
working with just pantone colors.
| | 06:41 | In the next movie, we will see how to
take this concept beyond to the colors
| | 06:45 | that you use every single day.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Producing color matches intelligently| 00:00 | Sometimes you have the artwork that you
want, but you don't necessarily have the
| | 00:05 | colors that you want, there can
be many reasons why this happens.
| | 00:08 | First of all, you may have bought some
kind of stock artwork from a web site
| | 00:12 | like istockphoto, for example,
that have a tremendous
| | 00:15 | amount of vector-based
artwork which looks great.
| | 00:18 | However, maybe you want to change some
of the colors, maybe you have a certain
| | 00:21 | library of corporate colors, or you
are working on a certain project that
| | 00:25 | already has a defined palette of
colors and you want that artwork to fit well
| | 00:29 | and to match with those colors.
| | 00:30 | Or here's another example, maybe you
are an apparel designer or a fashion
| | 00:34 | designer, you have a design that
really was great last year, now you want to
| | 00:38 | use that same design again this year,
however, this year's colors are different
| | 00:42 | than last year's colors.
| | 00:43 | So now you need to take your design,
you want to keep it the same, but you just
| | 00:47 | need to update all of the colors to be
this year's colors, or I've an example
| | 00:52 | like what I am looking at right now on
my screen called matching2.ai, it's a
| | 00:55 | lovely file that has many different gift cards.
| | 00:58 | I hired a designer to design all
these different gift cards for me.
| | 01:02 | However, at the same time my designer
was working on this, I had a completely
| | 01:06 | different department that was focused
on choosing colors to use, so now I have
| | 01:10 | my corporate colors.
| | 01:11 | I get my artwork, and I now simply
want all this artwork to only use
| | 01:16 | the corporate colors.
| | 01:17 | Do I have to now start selecting all
these colors and making color changes?
| | 01:21 | Wouldn't it be great if I can do all
of that with just one click of a mouse?
| | 01:24 | Let's see how to do that, I am going
to make this a little bit small, let me
| | 01:27 | zoom out, so I can move it up to the
upper left-hand corner and this will allow
| | 01:30 | me to have more room for
my Recolor Artwork dialog.
| | 01:33 | I am going to press Command+A
to select all of my artwork.
| | 01:37 | Again, the goal here is to keep my
artwork the same, but simply swap out the
| | 01:41 | existing colors, for colors
that I already have approval for.
| | 01:45 | In this example, I want to use my
existing Hansel & Petal corporate colors,
| | 01:49 | instead of the colors that are being used here.
| | 01:51 | Now I don't want to rethink the design
around color either, so what I really
| | 01:55 | want is I want Illustrator to look at
the colors that are now inside of this
| | 01:59 | file and keep them as close as possible
to the original, but just use the colors
| | 02:04 | that match closest to it
from my approved library.
| | 02:07 | For example, in the previous movie we
saw we could take an existing artwork and
| | 02:12 | convert it to its closest possible
match in the Pantone Library, But now, I am
| | 02:17 | going to click on the color chip
wheel with my artwork selected.
| | 02:19 | This brings up my Recolor Artwork dialog box.
| | 02:22 | Let's switch over here to the Edit view,
because again, it just allows us to see
| | 02:25 | clearly what's happening.
| | 02:27 | I have all of the colors that appear
inside of my artwork now mapped onto my
| | 02:31 | color wheel, but I am going to back to
this icon here to limit the color wheel
| | 02:34 | to only use colors within my approved library.
| | 02:37 | If I scroll down this list here,
remember that where it says, User Defined, I
| | 02:41 | already have my HANSEL_CORPORATE
colors saved as a library file.
| | 02:45 | If I choose that option, I am now
loading in only colors that exist in my
| | 02:50 | library of Hansel & Petal Corporate colors.
| | 02:53 | So as where my wheel of color was
nice and smooth before, now it's really
| | 02:57 | segmented into just a few colors.
| | 03:00 | Just to see exactly what's happening
here, I am going to uncheck the Recolor
| | 03:03 | Artwork button, this was before, this
is after, these are my original colors in
| | 03:08 | the artwork and these are their
closest possible matches, the colors that do
| | 03:11 | exist inside of my library.
| | 03:13 | So now I can click OK, and with one
click of the mouse, I'm able to take
| | 03:17 | existing artwork and convert them to
colors that I'm now allowed to use.
| | 03:22 | Again, if I am fashion designer and I
have last year's design, now I just want
| | 03:26 | to update it to use this year's colors,
I would open up the old file, select
| | 03:30 | all my artwork, open up the Recolor
Artwork dialog box, limit the Recolor
| | 03:35 | Artwork feature, to use only this years or
this season's colors, and then simply click OK.
| | 03:41 | Illustrator handles everything else for me.
| | 03:43 | Now there is one thing to note, the only
way to actually do this is to work with
| | 03:48 | library files that you've already saved,
so if you haven't already done so, you
| | 03:52 | might want to go back to Chapter 3
and revisit the concept of creating and
| | 03:56 | managing your own color libraries.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Color ApplicationProofing colors for color-blindness| 00:00 | I'd like to share a feature with you
inside of Illustrator that has to do with
| | 00:03 | color and that's also very
close and dear to my heart.
| | 00:07 | That's because I am one of the people
in the population that is classified
| | 00:11 | as being colorblind.
| | 00:12 | I am red-green colorblind, meaning,
that I have a very difficult time
| | 00:16 | differentiating between reds and greens.
| | 00:19 | Now about 7% of the population in
the United States is colorblind.
| | 00:23 | So that means it's certainly possible
that artwork that you create will be
| | 00:27 | perceived quite
differently by some other people.
| | 00:30 | In some countries such as Japan, for
example, the percentage of colorblind
| | 00:34 | people is even higher, closer to 14%.
| | 00:37 | Now in reality, if I pick up a newspaper
and I see something that looks green to
| | 00:42 | me but really it's red, this really
doesn't make that much of a difference.
| | 00:45 | However, if you have green text on a
red background, that actually is going to
| | 00:49 | cause a problem, because for some people
they won't be able to actually read the text;
| | 00:54 | that's because both those
colors will blend into each other.
| | 00:56 | And there won't be enough contrast
between the text and the background.
| | 01:01 | Now as you're designing inside of
Illustrator, how can you be sure that you use
| | 01:05 | in the correct contrast in your design
to ensure that somebody who is colorblind
| | 01:09 | also be able to perceive and read
the things that you're creating?
| | 01:14 | What's interesting is that the
government in Japan, understanding that such
| | 01:17 | a large percent of the population
is colorblind, actually implemented
| | 01:21 | standards where people who create
public signage need to ensure that the
| | 01:25 | artwork has enough contrast in it,
so it becomes visible and readable to
| | 01:29 | those who are colorblind.
| | 01:31 | So when you creating artwork
inside of Illustrator, you may decide to
| | 01:35 | double-check your artwork and make
sure that a person who is colorblind will
| | 01:38 | also be able to read or understand
the artwork that you're creating.
| | 01:42 | Back in Illustrator CS4, Adobe
Editor Preview functions that you can
| | 01:46 | actually turn your display, so
that it looks like the colors that a
| | 01:50 | colorblind person would see.
| | 01:51 | You can actually do that from the View menu.
| | 01:54 | Choose View, go to where it says
Proof Setup, and then choose between the
| | 01:58 | two popular different types of color blindness,
which is primarily red-green or blue-yellow.
| | 02:04 | I want to choose the red-green version
and you can see now that the colors look
| | 02:08 | very different on the screen.
| | 02:10 | Well, actually to me personally
they don't look very different.
| | 02:13 | In fact, the first time that I used
this feature, I thought it really wasn't
| | 02:16 | doing anything, but for a person who
doesn't suffer from colorblindness,
| | 02:19 | they would see a major shift now, and the
difference in how the colors appear on screen.
| | 02:24 | Now all I really wanted to do here is
make sure that my artwork has enough
| | 02:28 | contrast in it so that it still becomes legible.
| | 02:31 | I am actually going to go back to
the View menu here and I am going to
| | 02:34 | uncheck Proof Colors.
| | 02:35 | You see, once you've set up which
proofing type you want, you can just simply
| | 02:39 | toggle the setting by
turning Proof Colors on and off.
| | 02:41 | What I am going to do is I am going
to use under the feature here inside of
| | 02:44 | Illustrator to allow me to design and
also preview my colors at the same time.
| | 02:49 | Right now, I am working in this
document here called giftcards.ai.
| | 02:53 | I am going to go over to my Window
menu and I am going to choose this setting
| | 02:56 | here at the top called New Window.
| | 02:58 | This is actually going to create
now a second view of my existing file.
| | 03:02 | Notice over here I have something called
giftcards.ai, and then I have a colon
| | 03:06 | and this says the number 1, giftcards.ai:1.
| | 03:07 | This is the first view of that document.
| | 03:10 | And then I have giftcards.ai:2.
| | 03:13 | Now I can toggle back and forth between
them but that's not really what we want
| | 03:16 | to use because I am only seeing one at a time.
| | 03:19 | But if I go over here to my bar over
here at the top and, by the way, id this
| | 03:23 | does not look exactly the same on your
screen as it does on mine you might want
| | 03:27 | to go up to the Window menu and
choose to turn on the Application Frame.
| | 03:31 | That's what allows me to have
these buttons here at the top.
| | 03:33 | And I want to choose a 2-Up version.
| | 03:36 | This is going to allow me to view
both documents at the same time.
| | 03:39 | It's basically going to split my screen in half.
| | 03:41 | So I am just going to use my spacebar
here to reposition the artwork over here,
| | 03:45 | and then I'll click over here
and I'll also do the same this way.
| | 03:48 | So I am basely looking at the same
document, but I am looking at the same
| | 03:52 | document using two different views.
| | 03:55 | What I'll do over here is I'll click on
giftcards.ai:2, the second view and now
| | 04:00 | I'll go to the View menu and
I'll turn on the Proof Colors.
| | 04:04 | Now by default, Proof Colors is set to
the US Web Coated (SWOP) version 2 setting.
| | 04:09 | So I am going to go back to the View
menu here where it says Proof Setup, I am
| | 04:13 | going to change my proofing
to be set for Colorblindness.
| | 04:18 | So now I can work in this document
over here where I see all of my colors.
| | 04:22 | But I am also seeing another
version of my artwork here being previewed
| | 04:26 | for colorblindness.
| | 04:27 | If I go back to this window right now
and I select his background color and
| | 04:31 | I decide to change it, as I change it, I am
actually seeing what's different between the two.
| | 04:36 | Remember, it's the same document that
if I make changes in either window, it is
| | 04:40 | the same file that I am working on;
| | 04:41 | I am just previewing this
file in two different ways.
| | 04:44 | By working in this way I can ensure that
the colors that I am using in my design
| | 04:48 | have enough contrast that even someone
who is colorblind will still be able to
| | 04:52 | read and see everything in my design.
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| Understanding book color| 00:00 | Throughout this title, we have
discussed something called Pantone colors.
| | 00:05 | We have referred to those as libraries
that are called color book libraries.
| | 00:09 | Again, that's mainly because these
colors are often published in these books.
| | 00:14 | However, it's important to realize
that many designers choose pantone colors,
| | 00:18 | because they're able to achieve certain
colors that you can't get with process colors.
| | 00:22 | For example, bright oranges or greens or blues.
| | 00:26 | We've also spoken about other
colors like Metallic colors, for example.
| | 00:30 | Now there may be times when you are
working with the pantone color inside of
| | 00:33 | Illustrator and you want to find out
what its equivalent is in process colors,
| | 00:37 | you want to find its CMYK breakdown,
and sometimes people get confused,
| | 00:42 | because they see that Illustrator defines
pantone colors as something called a book color.
| | 00:48 | So I want to explain exactly what a
book color is inside of Illustrator, why it
| | 00:51 | exists and more
importantly how to benefit from it.
| | 00:55 | I am going to start by
creating a new document here.
| | 00:57 | I am just going to use a Print profile.
| | 00:59 | I want to start out with the
CMYK document and I will click OK.
| | 01:03 | Now let's bring a few
pantone colors into this document.
| | 01:06 | So I am going to go to the Library icon
right here in the Swatches panel, I'll
| | 01:10 | choose Color Books and let's
go to Pantone solid coated.
| | 01:14 | Now there are few colors here at the
top which I want to focus on right now.
| | 01:17 | For example, there's this Pantone
Orange 021, we will load that, and then let's
| | 01:22 | look at Pantone Red 032.
| | 01:23 | Let's may be do Pantone Purple,
and let's do a Violet. Why not?
| | 01:29 | So we have these four colors right now,
Pantone Orange 021, Pantone Red 032, and
| | 01:35 | then I also have Purple and Violet.
| | 01:37 | I can close this library now and
let's apply those colors to my screen.
| | 01:41 | Let me zoom-in just a bit here and I'm
going to create four rectangles, pretty
| | 01:45 | straightforward right here, just do one
rectangle like this and I am just going
| | 01:49 | to hold down my Option and Shift Keys
to create a copy, and then I will press
| | 01:52 | Command+D, and again, that
will be Ctrl+D on Windows.
| | 01:56 | And I am going to simply take the first
one and color that with Pantone Orange
| | 02:01 | 021, the second one will be the Red 032.
| | 02:04 | This one will be the Purple, this one
is already the Violet, but in case it is
| | 02:08 | on your screen, just simply go
ahead and apply the Violet color.
| | 02:11 | So now I have these four colors that
are really these vibrant colors, when I
| | 02:16 | would actually print them on press,
because my printer would mix the colors to
| | 02:20 | match the real true pantone color.
| | 02:22 | However, if I wanted to see the
CMYK breakdown to these or what their
| | 02:26 | equivalents are, I could, for example,
double-click on a swatch, I have no
| | 02:29 | artwork selected now, so I can just
double-click on Pentone Orange 021 and I
| | 02:34 | could see that here everything is
kind of grayed out, because this is a
| | 02:37 | color that I loaded from a library
and the Color mode is currently set to
| | 02:41 | something called Book Color.
| | 02:42 | Now I can see what the CMYK
breakdown is, but I know a lot of times many
| | 02:46 | designers try to actually switch this
to CMYK, and then they try to click OK,
| | 02:52 | and they don't understand why when they
come back to that, Illustrator actually
| | 02:56 | resets it back to a Book Color again.
| | 02:58 | So first let's understand exactly
what a Book Color is, and then we will
| | 03:02 | understand why Illustrator is doing this.
| | 03:04 | When pantone goes ahead and creates
colors, they're obviously looking to create
| | 03:08 | very rich and beautiful colors.
| | 03:10 | They don't really care
about their CMYK equivalence.
| | 03:13 | So, for example, if they feel
designers really want a bright orange color,
| | 03:16 | they'll mix their own custom inks to
come up with that bright orange color.
| | 03:20 | Now when Pantone delivers their
libraries of colors to a company like Adobe, for
| | 03:25 | example, they will create this Excel
spreadsheet that lists each of the colors,
| | 03:29 | and then they'll also list what the
closest possible match to that color is in
| | 03:34 | the process world, which is the CMYK breakdowns.
| | 03:37 | However, the real closest match to
that color can be described in Lab.
| | 03:43 | We discussed way back in the
beginning of this title that Lab is a far more
| | 03:46 | accurate way of describing how people
perceive color, so the gamut of course is much wider.
| | 03:52 | So the people at Pantone actually create
both CMYK breakdowns, but also Lab breakdowns.
| | 03:59 | The problem with Illustrator is that
inside of a regular swatch, I can only
| | 04:03 | store a color using one of these color models.
| | 04:05 | So if I use CMYK, I am kind of dumming
down this color, what really should be a
| | 04:09 | very bright and vibrant orange color, it
end up being this dumbed down CMYK color,
| | 04:15 | which is going to look dull in comparison.
| | 04:17 | If I use a Lab color model, I get a
much closer representation of that color,
| | 04:21 | but that also means that if I as a
designer decide that I want to convert this
| | 04:25 | pantone color to CMYK, I am going to
get a color conversion that first goes
| | 04:29 | through Lab, and then goes to CMYK.
| | 04:31 | So I am going to get odd values, I am
not going to get a solid value, like I
| | 04:34 | have here which would be 0, 53, 100, and 0.
| | 04:38 | I would get something that has like up
to two or three different decimal points
| | 04:41 | for each of these colors.
| | 04:43 | So if I know at the end of the day
that my color is going to be converted to
| | 04:46 | CMYK, I probably want to leave it as
a CMYK color, however, if I know I am
| | 04:52 | working in a workflow where this
actually is going to print as a Pantone Orange
| | 04:55 | 021 on press, I probably want that Lab
value, so that I can see on my screen
| | 05:00 | what that orange color is
really going to look like.
| | 05:03 | But like we just discussed, there is
no way for Illustrator to combine two
| | 05:07 | different color models or better yet
to describe a single color using two
| | 05:11 | different color models, within the same swatch.
| | 05:14 | I would need to have two versions of my swatch;
| | 05:17 | I would need to have a CMYK
version and a Lab version.
| | 05:20 | Now I know this may sound somewhat
technical, but this all comes together when
| | 05:25 | we think about what a book
color is inside of Illustrator.
| | 05:27 | A Book Color is a special kind of a swatch.
| | 05:30 | It's a swatch that can actually
contain inside of it two different color
| | 05:34 | definitions, a CMYK color definition,
and also a Lab color definition.
| | 05:40 | So when Adobe gets that spreadsheet
that shows all the CMYK and Lab breakdowns
| | 05:45 | of each of the colors in the Pantone
Library, Adobe actually puts both of those
| | 05:49 | values into something called a Book Color.
| | 05:51 | So I am going to click OK.
| | 05:53 | So that means that right now inside of
each of these swatches, I have both the
| | 05:57 | CMYK version and also a Lab version of a color.
| | 06:01 | Now by default, Illustrator is
always going to be serving me up the CMYK
| | 06:06 | version, because that's what
designers are most familiar with.
| | 06:08 | But if I know that I'm going to
actually be printing with pantone colors here,
| | 06:12 | I am not going to be breaking these
down to CMYK, I might want to see a close
| | 06:16 | representation of what these colors really
look like as I am working inside of Illustrator.
| | 06:20 | So what I really want to do is I want
Illustrator to show me these colors using
| | 06:24 | their Lab definitions and
not their CMYK definitions.
| | 06:28 | The way that I can do that is by
turning on a feature here in the View menu
| | 06:32 | called Overprint Preview.
| | 06:35 | Now normally, this special preview is
used so that you can actually preview
| | 06:39 | Overprint on your screen.
| | 06:41 | If you're not similar with the concept
of what an Overprint is, I suggest you
| | 06:44 | take a look at another one of my
Illustrator Insider Training Titles here at
| | 06:48 | lynda.com called Seeing Through Transparency.
| | 06:51 | We go into detail about
exactly what an Overprint is.
| | 06:54 | However, this particular preview mode
not only shows Overprint on my screen, it
| | 07:00 | also instructs all spot colors that are
currently set to Book Color to use their
| | 07:06 | lab color equivalents as a preview mechanism.
| | 07:09 | So watch what happens when
I turn Overprint Preview on.
| | 07:12 | You can see now that the colors
that I am seeing look different.
| | 07:15 | Let me go back to here for a
minute to the View menu and turn it off.
| | 07:19 | Take a look at the orange on the left
side of my screen as I turn this on and off.
| | 07:23 | Likewise take a look at the Purple.
| | 07:25 | You can see that there is a visible
color change as I make the changes between
| | 07:29 | the different preview modes.
| | 07:32 | So if I know I'm using pantone spot
colors, and I want to get a much closer
| | 07:36 | representation on my screen of what
that color is going to look like, I'll make
| | 07:39 | sure to turn Overprint Preview on.
| | 07:42 | It also means that I'd want to
keep my swatch set as a Book Color;
| | 07:46 | because that means that all times my
swatch contains both CMYK and Lab equivalence.
| | 07:51 | If I want to see Lab, I will
turn on the Overprint Preview.
| | 07:54 | If I want to get my CMYK breakdown,
I'll simply go ahead and just convert my
| | 07:59 | swatch to a regular process
color instead of a spot color.
| | 08:02 | Now the same thing applies,
by the way, when I'm printing.
| | 08:05 | If I go to the File menu here and I
choose to print my document, I can go over
| | 08:10 | here to the Advanced section of my
dialog, and where it says Overprints, right
| | 08:16 | now it's currently set to Preserve.
| | 08:18 | However, if I choose to simulate my
overprints, which is similar to turning on
| | 08:23 | Overprint Preview, that allows
Illustrator to send Lab color values to my
| | 08:28 | printer, instead of the CMYK values.
| | 08:31 | Now if I am printing to a regular laser
printer that uses CMYK toner-based inks,
| | 08:36 | I'm probably not going to
see much of a difference.
| | 08:38 | However, if I am using an Inkjet
printer, there are some inkjet printers
| | 08:41 | that use six colors.
| | 08:43 | That allows the printer to achieve
colors that go beyond the CMYK color gamut.
| | 08:48 | In other words, if I'm working with
pantone colors, and I want to get the
| | 08:52 | closest possible preview or proof to
what my file actually will look like when
| | 08:57 | it gets printed on a press.
| | 08:59 | Working with Book Colors and then
choosing Overprint Preview in my document or
| | 09:04 | choosing to simulate overprints when I
print will give me the closest possible
| | 09:08 | results to that final color.
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| Previewing color separations| 00:00 | When you're done working on your file
and you're ready to send it out for print
| | 00:04 | you might want to make sure that all the
plates are set up correctly so that the
| | 00:06 | separations are going to be right and
again this can be helpful if your sending
| | 00:10 | it off for offset printing or if you
are an apparel designer and you need to
| | 00:13 | generate different screens for
each of the colors that you are using.
| | 00:17 | Illustrator has a feature called
Separations Preview which helps you in this
| | 00:20 | process, now this document here
called seeds.ai, I actually have several
| | 00:26 | colors here inside of my file, I am
using CMYK so I have process colors in my
| | 00:31 | design, but I also have two Pantone colors
which I am using which appeared down over here.
| | 00:36 | So if I want to make sure that every
thing is going to print correctly and
| | 00:39 | separate correctly, I can go to
my Window menu and I can choose
| | 00:42 | Separations Preview.
| | 00:44 | Now Separations Preview only works when
the Over Print Preview setting is turned
| | 00:48 | on, and instead oh having to go all the
way up to the View menu, I can actually
| | 00:52 | activate that setting right here
from the Separations Preview panel.
| | 00:54 | Once I do so everything here now
becomes available and I could start to use
| | 00:59 | the eye balls here that appear on the left to
hide and show each of the individual plates.
| | 01:04 | So, for example, if I turn off all of
CMYK which is my composite here which
| | 01:08 | is just cyan, magenta, yellow and
black, I now see only the Pantone8203 and
| | 01:13 | the Pantone8343 plates which appear
right here, and I could turn these on and
| | 01:18 | off, to toggle them.
| | 01:20 | I could also turn off, for example,
just the black plate and see how
| | 01:23 | that's going to print.
| | 01:24 | Then I have my yellow plate, this my
magenta plate and this is my cyan plate.
| | 01:30 | if I click on CMYK then I basically
activate all those four plates again that's
| | 01:34 | a composite of all those plates
together now it's important to note that the
| | 01:38 | Separations Preview panel really isn't
intelligent, meaning it doesn't look at
| | 01:42 | the artwork on your screen.
| | 01:43 | If I had my swatches panel filled with
other Pantone colors and those Pantone
| | 01:48 | colors are not used in my design,
they'll still show up in this list.
| | 01:52 | If I activate them I won't see
anything inside of my documents because those
| | 01:55 | colors haven't been used but as long as
they appear in the swatches panel they
| | 01:59 | will appear listed in this list of over here.
| | 02:01 | This is unlike other application, for
example, like InDesign, which when you
| | 02:05 | use Separations Preview, only displays the
colors that are actually used inside of the document.
| | 02:11 | Even still this feature, Separations
Preview can be very helpful to help you
| | 02:15 | ensure that your artwork is set up
correctly and ready to go to print.
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|
|
ConclusionTaking color further with the Phantasm CS plug-in| 00:00 | We've spent a lot of time talking
about color throughout this title, yet I
| | 00:04 | would be remiss if I wouldn't tell
you about this incredible plug-in for
| | 00:07 | Illustrator called Phantasm CS.
| | 00:11 | It's created by a company called
Astute Graphics and you could actually find
| | 00:14 | that more information
about it at astutegraphics.com.
| | 00:18 | It basically continues the conversation
about everything that we have discussed
| | 00:22 | about color inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:24 | If you want to go to the next level and,
for example, you want actually make
| | 00:28 | changes to images that have been
embedded inside of Illustrator, or you want
| | 00:32 | make adjustments to like levels and
curves the same way that you might do them
| | 00:35 | inside of Photoshop, you'll
definitely want to take a look at this plug-in.
| | 00:38 | In fact, I will head over to
Illustrator here for just a moment to show you a
| | 00:42 | few of these really cool features.
| | 00:43 | For example, if I take, let's say,
just a Shape, for example, just an ellipse
| | 00:47 | here and draw a circle on my artboard,
I am going to fill this with maybe a
| | 00:50 | gradient here, but get rid of the stroke jeer;
| | 00:52 | we don't need the stroke on this, and
a feature that I know a lot of people
| | 00:55 | always look for is a way to actually
turn this into some kind of a halftone.
| | 00:59 | If I go to the Effect menu at the
bottom here, since I have the Phantasm CS
| | 01:03 | plug-in installed, I will see an option
here for Halftone, and I get all these
| | 01:07 | incredible options that I can then apply.
| | 01:09 | For example, I could choose a Shape for
that halftone, be it a circle or maybe a
| | 01:14 | square or a line and I could actually
mess with the size of those circles, for
| | 01:18 | example, maybe scale it up 200% so I
get a bigger dot, and I can adjust many of
| | 01:22 | these settings here as well.
| | 01:23 | Let me cancel out of this for a second
because I want to show you that if you're
| | 01:26 | familiar with levels or curve
adjustments that you can make inside of Photoshop,
| | 01:30 | you can now do them here inside of
Illustrator as well and it even works images
| | 01:35 | that you have embedded into your document.
| | 01:37 | I will go to the Effect menu, I will
choose Phantasm CS and I will choose this
| | 01:41 | option here called Levels.
| | 01:43 | This looks just the way you might find
it inside of Photoshop where I can make
| | 01:46 | these adjustments right here and
see them happening on my screen.
| | 01:50 | If I click Cancel, I will show you,
I can also do the same thing using
| | 01:54 | Curves instead of Levels.
| | 01:55 | I'll go to here and choose Curves
and again, if I am familiar with seeing
| | 01:59 | this inside of Photoshop, I can now apply
these settings here directly inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:04 | This really is just the tip of the iceberg.
| | 02:05 | There is a tremendous amount of rich
features and functions that you can
| | 02:10 | apply especially in the realm of color
and I would tell that this applies to
| | 02:14 | print production also.
| | 02:15 | For example, these plug-ins also
allow you to swap in colors and to produce
| | 02:19 | sophisticated color separations.
| | 02:21 | So if any of that sounds
somewhat interesting you, head over to
| | 02:25 | astutegraphics.com and
definitely check out Phantasm CS.
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| Next steps| 00:00 | So hopefully after watching this
title along with me you have a whole new
| | 00:04 | appreciation for what you can do with
color inside of Illustrator but of course
| | 00:09 | as with all Illustrator insider
training titles this is just the beginning, now
| | 00:14 | that you understand how all this works
its up to you to apply this knowledge to
| | 00:18 | the work that you do every day.
| | 00:20 | Go ahead and push the envelope and
create something fantastic, as always if you
| | 00:25 | have questions or just want to show me
some of the cool things that you were
| | 00:28 | able to do now that you've learned,
some helpful techniques through this title
| | 00:31 | definitely drop me a line, I'd love
to hear from you, you can find me on
| | 00:36 | Facebook and also on twitter @Mordy.
Of course I look forward to seeing you
| | 00:43 | again in a future Illustrator
insider trading title here at
| | 00:47 | lynda.com.
| | 00:48 | Shalom!
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