IntroductionWelcome| 00:02 | If you are a designer looking for
inspiration around the use colors or if just
| | 00:07 | like me you're one of the color challenged,
you have come to the right place.
| | 00:10 | Hi, I'm Mordy Golding and welcome to
Kuler Essential Training. I like to think of
| | 00:15 | Adobe Kuler as a digital color
swatch book that does a whole lot more.
| | 00:20 | Kuler is our free service, what Adobe
refers to as a rich internet application,
| | 00:24 | where you can share color themes with
designers around the world and you can
| | 00:28 | share ideas and inspiration
with the entire design community.
| | 00:32 | So what will I be showing you? How to
create color themes that work in harmony
| | 00:36 | with your projects. How to use keywords
and phrases to find the perfect colors
| | 00:41 | for your needs. How to save and tag
your own color themes so that others can
| | 00:45 | get inspired by them. I will even
show you how to extract colors from
| | 00:48 | photographs for use in your design
projects. So that you can be creative and
| | 00:52 | productive, you will also learn how to
access Kuler directly from within your
| | 00:56 | favorite design applications such as
Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Flash
| | 01:01 | and even Fireworks.
| | 01:02 | So for just a little while, put that
color swatch book away and let's great
| | 01:06 | started with Kuler Essential Training.
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| Bring your Adobe ID| 00:00 | So let's jump right into Kuler. You
can access Kuler by pointing your web
| | 00:04 | browser, whichever one you would like
to use, to kuler.adobe.com. It's listed
| | 00:08 | right up over here. Kuler. Now Kuler
is a free service that you could use.
| | 00:14 | However, in order to really take
advantage of the benefits that Kuler offers
| | 00:17 | you need to be a registered user at
adobe.com. If you don't already have an
| | 00:21 | Adobe ID, you can go over here on the
top and click on the Register button.
| | 00:25 | Doing so takes you to the Sign In
page where you could go ahead and create
| | 00:28 | an Adobe account.
| | 00:29 | Since I already have an Adobe account,
I am going to go ahead and cancel this.
| | 00:32 | I am going to sign in over here
clicking on the Sign In button. Type in my name
| | 00:36 | over here and my password, which you
don't know. And I click on the Remember Me
| | 00:44 | button. This way I know that every time
I come back to Kuler it will know who I am.
| | 00:48 | So now I am logged in to Kuler. Notice
over here where it says Welcome, Mordy.
| | 00:54 | I now have a setting over here called
Mykuler which gives me a list of all the
| | 00:58 | colors that I have created and now that
we have our Adobe ID and we are signed in,
| | 01:02 | let's get started
using colors inside of Kuler.
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1. Creating Color ThemesCreating a theme from a color| 00:00 | Once you have logged into Kuler you
are brought to the Themes page where you
| | 00:04 | could browse through themes that had
been created by other designers. However,
| | 00:07 | one of the most exciting parts about
Kuler is creating your own color themes.
| | 00:11 | Let's take a quick look at how you
actually create color themes using Kuler.
| | 00:15 | I am going to start off by clicking on the
Create button down over here on the left side.
| | 00:19 | This brings me to the Create Page. As
you can see over here you can either
| | 00:22 | create a color theme from a color or
from an image. I am going to choose right
| | 00:26 | here From a Color. The first thing you
will do is you actually move over here
| | 00:30 | where it says Select a Rule. Kuler
offers six different rules. Something called
| | 00:34 | Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad,
Complimentary, Compound and Shades. We will
| | 00:39 | talk about Custom later as well.
| | 00:42 | Once you go ahead and you choose a
particular rule, for example, I will choose
| | 00:45 | Monochromatic, you could then go over
to the color wheel. Here click to basically
| | 00:49 | move those circles around on the wheel.
Let's say I choose something in the red
| | 00:54 | area here, in some bright reds for
example. Notice that on the bottom, I see
| | 00:58 | five colors that have been created
based on the positions that I put these
| | 01:02 | circles on the color wheel.
| | 01:03 | These five colors are referred to as
a Kuler theme. What I will first do is
| | 01:08 | come over here to where it says Title
and I will give my theme a title. Let's
| | 01:11 | call this one blood red. Next, what I
will do is I will add some Tags. It's
| | 01:16 | important to add as many tags as
possible when you create a theme that way it
| | 01:20 | will be easier to be found by either
yourself or by other designers as well. So
| | 01:24 | let's type in blood, valentine. Let's
type in horror and let's type in just red.
| | 01:31 | Notice that as I added extra words
here in tags I have separated them by
| | 01:35 | commas. The next step here is to
actually save my theme. Now before I click on
| | 01:39 | the Save button, notice on the
right here I can either choose Public or
| | 01:42 | Private. By choosing Public I am
telling Kuler that I am allowing other
| | 01:45 | designers to access my theme. By
choosing Private I am only allowing Kuler to
| | 01:50 | show those particular
themes that I create to me.
| | 01:53 | In this case here I am going to
choose Public and I will click Save.
| | 01:56 | After that particular theme is saved Kuler
returns me to a section called Mykuler and
| | 02:00 | gives me a list of all those themes
that I have created. Here is one I just
| | 02:04 | created called blood red. Now that you
have created your first color theme you
| | 02:08 | are ready to learn about all the
setting that are involved in getting just the
| | 02:10 | right colors that you need.
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| Deconstructing the color wheel| 00:00 | There are several steps that you go
through when creating a theme of color
| | 00:04 | using Kuler. One of the most fun parts
is using this part here that's in the
| | 00:07 | center called the color wheel. So
let's get a better understanding of exactly
| | 00:11 | what is represented by this color
wheel and how we can interact with it.
| | 00:15 | Now you notice right away that there
are these circles that appear. As I mouse
| | 00:17 | over them, notice that the color
squares highlight on the bottom. Each of these
| | 00:21 | little circles here represents each of
those colors mapped on to the color wheel.
| | 00:25 | There are also lines that connect
each of these particular colors and those
| | 00:30 | basically reference the relationship
between those colors. You can click on any
| | 00:34 | of these circles and move them around
the particular color wheel and you notice
| | 00:38 | that all the other colors move in tandem
with them. The relationship is defined
| | 00:42 | between those particular colors.
| | 00:44 | You can click on another one, for
example, this one and move that around as
| | 00:47 | well. So let's understand exactly
what is represented by this color wheel.
| | 00:52 | The the color wheel itself uses
something called HSB or it's a model of
| | 00:56 | defining color or better yet
understanding color. H stands for Hue, S stands
| | 01:02 | for Saturation and B stands for
Brightness. There are some people who refer to
| | 01:06 | it as HSV or Hue, Saturation and Value.
| | 01:10 | The Hue is basically the color itself.
The Saturation is the amount of the
| | 01:15 | richness of that particular color and
then the Brightness or the Value refers
| | 01:19 | to how dark or light that particular
color is. When you click on one of the
| | 01:22 | color circles and you move that
color in a clockwise or counterclockwise
| | 01:26 | direction you are adjusting
the Hue of that particular color.
| | 01:30 | Notice over here I am going from
Yellows to Greens to Blues, so on and so forth.
| | 01:35 | When I drag my color wheel towards
the center or away from the center I am
| | 01:40 | adjusting the saturation. Notice now
I have a very desaturated color. Now I
| | 01:44 | have a very over saturated color.
The way to adjust the Brightness or the value
| | 01:48 | setting is to click on this
triangle here and adjust the slider.
| | 01:52 | Notice now I have very dark colors.
Now I have very bright or light colors. So,
| | 01:57 | when I am working with the color wheel,
I am always adjusting the Hue or the
| | 02:00 | Saturation or the Brightness of my
colors. Of course, this is just one way to
| | 02:07 | work with color inside of Kuler. As
we will see there are many ways to work
| | 02:10 | with colors inside of Kuler.
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| Understanding color rules| 00:00 | One of the great things about working
with color inside of Kuler is that you
| | 00:03 | pick one color and then Kuler
dreams up these other colors that seem to
| | 00:07 | magically match with that color.
| | 00:09 | How does that work? Well, when we are
using color inside of Kuler, we work to
| | 00:13 | create these themes of color. In this
case, here on my screen I have these five
| | 00:17 | different squares of color that
are now part of this one theme.
| | 00:21 | Now, what is a theme? A theme is a
defined relationship that exists between
| | 00:24 | those colors and that's actually how
Kuler creates those additional colors.
| | 00:29 | If I choose one color, then Kuler takes
an established relationship and then
| | 00:33 | creates the other colors to
match with that original color.
| | 00:37 | Now, you could ask well, what
relationship exists? Who define the relationship?
| | 00:40 | The answer is that you do. By choosing
a rule. A rule can also be referred to
| | 00:45 | as a color harmony.
| | 00:46 | Well, inside of Kuler, there are six
different possible rules that you can use.
| | 00:50 | Something called Analogous,
Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, and
| | 00:56 | Shades. There is also another option
here called Custom, which we will talk
| | 01:00 | about in just a moment.
| | 01:00 | Let's return to Analogous here and
see exactly what this relationship of
| | 01:04 | Analogous is. You'll notice by the way
that if you mouse over these little pop-ups
| | 01:07 | it kind of shows you or describes what that
particular relationship is of those colors.
| | 01:12 | For example, with Analogous, it says
match colors with adjacent hues. So let's
| | 01:17 | take a look at what we are
seeing here on the color wheel.
| | 01:18 | I have a single color here in the
center which has a bold line around it.
| | 01:21 | That's something that we refer to as a
base color. That's the color that I have
| | 01:25 | chosen. The other colors that exist
over here are the exact same saturation
| | 01:29 | values. However, they differ in hue.
| | 01:32 | So I have over here two colors on one
side of the wheel and two colors on the
| | 01:35 | other side of the wheel, and those are the
colors that Kuler generates automatically.
| | 01:39 | Now, if I happened to like one of these
colors, for example I click on this one,
| | 01:42 | I can now over here and choose Set as
base and now, Kuler uses that as the main
| | 01:47 | color value to basically use my
defined relationship called Analogous colors,
| | 01:52 | to come up with four colors that work
well with that one color, the base color.
| | 01:56 | As I move the base color around on the
color wheel, what's happening is that
| | 02:00 | Kuler is using that relationship, again
defined by the lines that are connected
| | 02:03 | here, to come up with a way to
generate the other colors in my theme.
| | 02:07 | By clicking on some of these other
colors for example, I can move them around.
| | 02:10 | They all in this particular case here,
since they are Analogous, have the same
| | 02:14 | saturation values, but they differ in
their hue settings. Let's take a look at
| | 02:18 | some of the other rules
that exist inside of Kuler.
| | 02:21 | Monochromatic colors are ones that
have the exact same hue setting. However,
| | 02:25 | they differ in Brightness or in
Saturation values. I also have Triad colors,
| | 02:31 | which are simply colors that appear
split, of course, three different sections
| | 02:35 | on the color wheel.
| | 02:36 | Complementary colors are defined by
colors that appear opposite of each other
| | 02:39 | on the color wheel. You also have
Compound and Shades. I am going to return
| | 02:44 | here to Analogous for a second here
because there may be times when you want to
| | 02:47 | break the rules.
| | 02:48 | Let's say you want a color that is
not defined by a specific relationship.
| | 02:51 | Let's go over here and choose Custom,
and here I have the ability to take any
| | 02:55 | particular color on my wheel and
position it anywhere that I want. In this
| | 02:59 | particular case here, I am not
working within a rule itself. I am basically
| | 03:03 | positioning colors anyway that I want to.
| | 03:05 | The main thing to take away from this
is that there is no such thing as
| | 03:08 | a good rule or a bad rule, or even a
right or a wrong one. The rules that you
| | 03:11 | choose are defined by the
job that you are working on.
| | 03:14 | Sometimes you may be working on a
piece where you want analogous colors or
| | 03:17 | monochromatic colors. Basically, the
important thing to realize is that these
| | 03:20 | are simply scientific ways to define
a relationship between colors and for
| | 03:25 | every design task that you work
on you may choose a different rule.
| | 03:28 | Most importantly, have fun when you
are working with this. The more that you
| | 03:31 | experiment, the more you might discover
colors that you never knew existed before.
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| Removing and adding colors| 00:00 | When you are creating color themes
inside of Kuler, you will notice that the
| | 00:03 | default setting always adds
five colors to your theme.
| | 00:06 | Now, it happens to be that five is the
maximum number of colors that you can
| | 00:09 | use inside of a theme. However, let's
say you don't need that many colors.
| | 00:12 | Let's say you only need three or four colors.
| | 00:15 | By simply mousing over any of these
color squares, you can choose the Remove
| | 00:18 | Color option. Now, I only have four
circles mapped onto my color wheel. I can
| | 00:23 | actually remove so many colors that all
I have is just my base color. Not much of
| | 00:28 | a harmony there.
| | 00:29 | However, I can choose to add colors at
any time by clicking on these buttons as
| | 00:32 | well. Remember, a theme inside of Kuler
can have anywhere between one and five
| | 00:37 | colors inside of it. If you need more
than five colors, you may need to create
| | 00:40 | two themes and work with those.
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| Using color values| 00:00 | There is no question that when
working with Kuler moving the little color
| | 00:03 | circles around on a color wheel can be
lots of fun. However, there may be times
| | 00:07 | when you are looking for a
very precise or a specific color.
| | 00:09 | Let's say you actually know the value
of a color that you want to use. I will
| | 00:12 | scroll down to the bottom of the Kuler
screen and you will see that over here,
| | 00:16 | I have these values called HSV, which
we already know as Hue/Saturation/Value.
| | 00:22 | RGB, Red, Green and Blue. CMYK, Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow and Black. Lab Colors or
| | 00:27 | Lightness and an A and a B channel, or
Hexadecimal colors which are used for web design.
| | 00:32 | As I create colors inside of Kuler,
every single color is also defined using
| | 00:36 | these values here. Now, I can
actually put my cursor inside of these.
| | 00:39 | For example CMYK, I could type in those
values here. I will type in let's say 10,
| | 00:44 | type a Tab key here, go to 80, maybe
I will do 25 and then 0. Notice that I
| | 00:49 | could very easily bring up that
particular color as I am working.
| | 00:52 | Now, I could also choose to copy these
colors and then paste them into another
| | 00:55 | application that I am using. I also
have the ability here to click on these
| | 00:58 | Triangles and drag them on a
slider. Notice that when I do this, those
| | 01:02 | particular colors all adjust
and the harmony updates as well.
| | 01:05 | What's really great about these values
here is that it works two ways. I can
| | 01:10 | either start off let's say I know a
color in my head. I can start punching that
| | 01:13 | color in here numerically and then
build a library or a theme of colors based
| | 01:17 | on that color, or I can use Kuler to
experiment with colors in a visual way by
| | 01:22 | spinning wheels around the color wheel.
Then coming down here to the values in
| | 01:25 | the bottom and then seeing exactly
what the numeric values of that color are,
| | 01:29 | not just my base color by the way, but
for any other color that I click on as well.
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| Creating a theme from an image| 00:00 | Kuler is great for defining
relationships between colors based on a single base
| | 00:04 | color that you define. However, you
don't have to use a color. You could
| | 00:07 | actually use Kuler to create an
entire harmony of colors based on an image.
| | 00:12 | Let's take a look at how we do that.
| | 00:14 | If you look over here on the left side
where it says Create, I can choose to
| | 00:17 | create a theme of colors from a color or from
an image. I am going to click on From an Image.
| | 00:22 | Now by default, Kuler has this flower
that's here and you notice that these
| | 00:26 | little circles, the same circles that
we have seen on an actual color wheel
| | 00:29 | before, are now mapped out
onto the photograph itself.
| | 00:33 | Now if I go over, instead of me
choosing a color rule or a harmony like we
| | 00:36 | discussed before, now we could choose
to select a mood of color. Do we want
| | 00:41 | colorful colors from this particular
image, bright colors, muted colors? And if
| | 00:46 | I scroll down here to the bottom you
will see that these are the colors or the
| | 00:49 | theme of colors that have been
picked out or plucked from this particular
| | 00:53 | image. The other moods that I
can choose are Deep or Dark.
| | 00:57 | There is also a Custom option here,
but you notice that's grayed out. I can't
| | 01:01 | click on it to choose it. Why is that?
Well, in order for you to define a
| | 01:05 | custom set of colors based on an image,
all you need to do is simply go over to
| | 01:09 | these color circles on the image itself and
reposition it exactly where you want them to go.
| | 01:14 | So for example, I want this color here.
I can choose that color, so on and so forth.
| | 01:18 | There is no such thing as a base
color when you are working with an image,
| | 01:22 | because all the colors are chosen
directly out of the image. They are not
| | 01:25 | automatically generated using a color harmony
or a color rule as we had defined in the past.
| | 01:30 | Now, this is wonderful for an image
here that Kuler provides, but let's say you
| | 01:34 | want to pull colors out of a custom
image. Let me scroll up here for a second
| | 01:37 | here and you will see there is a button
here called Upload. I am going to click
| | 01:40 | on that button and it brings me to my
Desktop and My Computer. I will choose a
| | 01:44 | photo here called golf_01.jpg and I
will choose that image, and that image, the
| | 01:49 | one that I have chosen, happens to
be of my son playing golf, and I could
| | 01:52 | choose now between Bright or Muted or Deep
colors from that particular photograph as well.
| | 01:58 | In fact, I can load any particular
photograph. It's very easy if I go ahead and
| | 02:02 | I choose Upload again. I am going to
choose another particular golf image,
| | 02:06 | choose Select. I get other ranges of
colors. Again, I can customize exactly
| | 02:11 | where those colors are chosen
by moving these circles around.
| | 02:14 | Once I am happy with the colors
that are picked out of that particular
| | 02:16 | photograph, I can choose a title, add
tags, and save them the same way that I
| | 02:20 | save any other theme of colors inside of Kuler.
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| Accessing images from Flickr| 00:00 | As designers, we get inspiration for
color from almost any source and we have
| | 00:04 | already seen inside of Kuler that you
can use regular standard colors to define
| | 00:08 | a relationship of colors, to create a
theme of color. Alternatively, you can
| | 00:11 | choose to upload your own images and
basically pull out a color theme from
| | 00:15 | those particular images. Well, what about
colors from other areas or other people's images?
| | 00:20 | Well, Kuler allows you to actually
pull images from Flickr, which is a great
| | 00:23 | website which has pictures from
everywhere. To do that, simply click on the
| | 00:27 | Flickr button right here on the
bottom of the photograph and you can take
| | 00:30 | this little import area here. So
let's say choose this image right here.
| | 00:34 | That gets loaded here and I can now choose lovely
colors from this particular image that's here.
| | 00:39 | Let me click on Flickr again here,
because I want to show you some of the
| | 00:41 | things that you can do once you are
pulling those pictures from Flickr.
| | 00:45 | For example, there is a pop-up here.
I can choose Interesting Colors or All
| | 00:49 | Time images, or maybe just images
that have been uploaded to Flickr for the
| | 00:52 | last 7 days. This one has
lots of really cool colors.
| | 00:55 | Let me click on this one here and I can
pull out, let's say, bright colors from
| | 00:58 | this particular one and take a look at
this beautiful color theme that I have
| | 01:01 | now defined, simply by
importing an image here from Flickr.
| | 01:04 | Let me go back to Flickr here,
because I want to show you that you can also
| | 01:07 | search by other things as well.
| | 01:09 | For example here, I am going to type in
radmegan, who happens to be a friend of
| | 01:12 | mine who works here at lynda.com,
and I see here some lovely images of the
| | 01:16 | flowers that she has taken. So if I
click on this particular image right
| | 01:19 | here, I bring in this photograph and
let's choose some Deep colors in that
| | 01:23 | photograph. Here is another beautiful
theme of colors that I have now defined
| | 01:27 | using an image directly from Flickr.
| | 01:29 | So again, you can also use your
individual photographs or bring in photographs
| | 01:33 | that you can get inspired
from the entire Flickr website.
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| Naming, tagging, and saving themes| 00:00 | Sometimes when I am using Kuler, I am
having such a great time defining all
| | 00:03 | these colors, it's made it so much fun,
that I almost forget that I am actually
| | 00:06 | trying to create some that I can use.
| | 00:08 | Well, once you have defined your
colors that you want to work with, you then
| | 00:12 | have to then save those particular
files. In fact, let's go back over here
| | 00:15 | where I was creating colors from an image.
| | 00:16 | I have this beautiful image here
from Radmegan that I have uploaded from
| | 00:19 | Flickr. I get this beautiful theme of
colors here, this wonderful collection of
| | 00:24 | green colors that I can
use within my design project.
| | 00:27 | So I will scroll up over here and the
first thing I will do is I will give a
| | 00:30 | title to my particular theme of colors.
Now, it's important to realize that
| | 00:33 | there are really going to be two ways
that I can reference my theme that I have
| | 00:36 | created. One is through the Title and
one is through the Tags that I see down
| | 00:40 | here below. The Tags are simply a
collection of words, what we refer to as
| | 00:44 | metadata, that describes that particular theme.
| | 00:47 | Now, if I am doing a search I want
to find that. It doesn't really make a
| | 00:50 | difference if I am searching based on
the name of my theme or in the Tags of my
| | 00:53 | theme. Giving it a name gives me a
point that I can reference very easily the
| | 00:57 | theme that I have created.
| | 00:59 | Let's say I call this one flower power.
I go down here for Tags and I will type
| | 01:04 | in petals, let's say I type in greens,
whites, let me type in floral. Again,
| | 01:11 | the more Tags that I add here
basically, the more of a chance I am going to
| | 01:14 | find this theme when I do a search for it.
But more importantly, Tags are not
| | 01:18 | even there for myself, because I will
know the name of the particular theme
| | 01:21 | that I have created, but the Tags are
there for other designers to tap into.
| | 01:24 | As we see over here, once I have
added the Tags to my particular theme,
| | 01:28 | there is a button here called
Public and a button called Private.
| | 01:31 | Now, here's really the key thing
about understanding the whole concept of
| | 01:34 | working within Kuler. I can use Kuler
for my own purposes. As a designer, I am
| | 01:39 | living on an island. It's just me and
the colors and that's it. And the project
| | 01:42 | that I am working on. But there are
many times when I want to use Kuler to be
| | 01:45 | able to find or search on other
colors that may exist. Maybe someone else
| | 01:49 | created a real cool color theme and I
want to be able to use or modify that
| | 01:52 | color theme. Well, I may perform a
search within Kuler to find me all colors,
| | 01:56 | let's say, that are used with greens,
for example, or find me all floral colors.
| | 01:59 | Well, since I have given the Tag over
here called floral, by simply typing in a
| | 02:03 | floral search I can then get
returned these colors that I have created.
| | 02:07 | Now, if I choose to create my theme
as a Public theme, then other designers
| | 02:11 | will have the ability to type in the
word floral and get this particular color
| | 02:15 | theme returned to them.
| | 02:16 | However if I choose Private, only I
have access to those colors. Again, it's
| | 02:20 | completely up to you as a designer to
choose whether or not you want to make
| | 02:22 | your themes Public or Private.
| | 02:24 | For example, maybe you are working on
some kind of top-secret project and you
| | 02:27 | have these colors that you defined
and you love these colors, and you don't
| | 02:30 | want anyone else to use the colors
that you have defined. You may then choose
| | 02:34 | the Private button. So let's go ahead
and choose Private here for a second, and
| | 02:36 | then I will choose Save.
| | 02:38 | Now this gets saved to a certain part
on a Kuler website called Mykuler and
| | 02:42 | these are the themes that I have created.
If I go over here, these are the ones
| | 02:45 | that are created simply by me. The one
over here it says, flower power. This
| | 02:49 | one is only visible to me. Here by
the way are the actual Tags that I have
| | 02:53 | given that particular one, and you
could perform other searches on this as well.
| | 02:56 | But right now I have created
this flower power that only I can see.
| | 03:00 | Go back to the Create here. Let me
choose, let's say, Dark colors. Let's create
| | 03:04 | a Public one based on this one here.
Let's call this one evil flower. Let's do
| | 03:08 | dark green, petals again. Maybe we will
type in the word evil or mean or dark,
| | 03:16 | so on and so forth. As I kind of put
these in here, I am adding the Tags that I
| | 03:19 | referenced to this particular image that's
right here and I will make this one Public.
| | 03:23 | Now when I choose Save, the theme
itself still goes to Mykuler that I have here
| | 03:27 | on the website. However, if other
designers now go ahead and they search,
| | 03:30 | they can find that.
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|
|
2. Finding and Managing Color ThemesViewing your themes with Mykuler| 00:00 | So Adobe Kuler is this great place
you can actually create these wonderful
| | 00:04 | themes of color. Well, how do you use
those colors once you have created them?
| | 00:09 | So you've already known that sometimes
when you create some of these colors,
| | 00:12 | you are returned to this area called Mykuler.
| | 00:14 | Mykuler is this area that exists within
the Kuler website that is your page. It
| | 00:19 | contains all the Kuler themes that you
have created that are yours. To access
| | 00:23 | your color themes at any time, simply
go over here and click on the button
| | 00:26 | called Mykuler.
| | 00:28 | This shows you all the themes that
you have created. Along with all the
| | 00:31 | comments that other people have made
on your themes. For example I have one
| | 00:34 | here called Homeland Security. The tags
I have given it are elevated, guarded,
| | 00:38 | high, low, and severe and you will
notice over here that somebody says that
| | 00:41 | 'explanes' a lot. Someone else said, spell
explain please before you can comment wisely.
| | 00:46 | So lots of interesting feedback that
you get from people when you are working
| | 00:50 | with Kuler. Again, this just
enhances the overall community.
| | 00:52 | There are a couple of things that you
can do here once you are at your Mykuler
| | 00:55 | area. The sites that I could easily
access the themes that you have created,
| | 00:59 | you can also apply certain settings to
them. For example, let's say over here
| | 01:02 | this one called mordys faves. Well,
maybe it's not my fav anymore. If I go
| | 01:06 | ahead and I click on that, I can come
into the Trash Can and delete it. That
| | 01:09 | removes it completely from Kuler.
Now no one else can access it, nor can I.
| | 01:13 | There are some other interesting
things that I can do inside of Mykuler as
| | 01:17 | well. For example you can see over here
that it says by Mordy. These themes are
| | 01:20 | created by me and this is how other
designers see me as well within the Kuler
| | 01:24 | community when they do a search for
example, for maybe blood red, for example.
| | 01:28 | They will see that theme and it will
have this little icon appearing next to me.
| | 01:31 | This is what we refer to as my avatar.
Let's say I want to change my avatar
| | 01:35 | to something else. Let's say for
example I really like my Homeland Security one.
| | 01:39 | If I want to make that my avatar,
I'll simply come over here to this
| | 01:42 | button here called More Info.
| | 01:44 | If I click on this, I can choose to
make this my avatar and doing so now that
| | 01:49 | becomes the icon that other people
see me by. What's really cool about that
| | 01:53 | little button over here called More or
Less Info is that it also lets me see
| | 01:56 | that other people have downloaded this
8 times. 5 members have actually made
| | 02:00 | this their favorite one and I see that
it's been rated as 2.5. We'll talk more
| | 02:04 | about ratings in another video.
Let me choose over here Less Info.
| | 02:08 | So again Mykuler is an area that I
basically can work with all the different
| | 02:12 | themes that I have already
created inside of Kuler and manage them.
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| Searching for color themes| 00:00 | One of the greatest benefits about
using Adobe Kuler is the fact that it's an
| | 00:03 | online community. Thousands and
thousands of designers all over the world use
| | 00:08 | Kuler to create their themes of color.
In fact, you as a designer can access
| | 00:12 | the many themes of colors that
have been created by other designers.
| | 00:14 | When you first log into Kuler, you will
notice that you are taken right away to
| | 00:18 | the Themes page. If you click over
here, you'll see there's something here
| | 00:20 | called Themes. Now there's something
called Newest, Most Popular, Highest Rated
| | 00:27 | and Random, and these are different
ways for you to see the themes that are
| | 00:30 | created or that exist
within the Kuler community.
| | 00:33 | As a designer, you can derive
inspiration by doing a search to find the colors
| | 00:37 | that you want and as we'll soon see you
have the ability to use those colors or
| | 00:42 | you can use those as a base to
create or modify them to your liking.
| | 00:45 | Let's take a look at the first one here
on this list called Newest. The Newest
| | 00:48 | setting here brings you a list of all
the themes that have been created most
| | 00:51 | recently. These are themes that are
being created right now by designers all
| | 00:54 | over the world.
| | 00:55 | Most Popular themes that are
downloaded most often. Highest Rated themes are
| | 00:59 | those that have the highest star
ratings. We'll talk more about those in
| | 01:02 | another video as well. I can also
choose the Random option which simply gives
| | 01:06 | me surprise inspiration. Whatever
it is that I might find, who knows.
| | 01:10 | Now, since themes are created all the
time, I have the ability to come here for
| | 01:13 | example to go to Highest Rated and
find themes that have only been highest
| | 01:17 | rated over the last seven days, and I
can use this little filter here it's
| | 01:21 | called the Time Base Filter to narrow
down my search results, whether they
| | 01:25 | cover all days or maybe the last
seven days or in the last 30 days. Default
| | 01:29 | setting is the last 30 days.
| | 01:31 | Now it's really cool that you can go
ahead and you can choose to go through
| | 01:34 | these most popular highest rated ones,
but that's really not anyway nearly
| | 01:37 | exciting as being able to search for
and find just the colors that you want.
| | 01:41 | For example, we know that we can apply
tags or metadata to each of the themes
| | 01:45 | that we create to allow others to
search or find those particular themes.
| | 01:49 | On the top over here there is a button
here called Search. If I click on this,
| | 01:52 | I have the ability to type in a
specific keyword that I can now do a search to
| | 01:56 | find themes that match that keyword
or that tag. Let's type in mint. I do a
| | 02:01 | search now on that word and all color
themes that are created by all designers
| | 02:04 | around the world that have applied a
tag of mint to their particular color, now
| | 02:08 | show up in my results and I can now go
through these and see which ones that I like.
| | 02:12 | What's really cool about Kuler though
is that I can go here to this one called
| | 02:16 | Mint Chocolate and take a better look
at the colors that exist here. In fact,
| | 02:19 | if I really want to take a closer look
of those colors, I can click once on any
| | 02:22 | of these color squares and expand to
fill my entire screen. This gives me the
| | 02:26 | ability to kind of sit back for my
computer screen and really soak and absorb
| | 02:29 | those colors and see if I like them. I will
click again to return it back to its other settings.
| | 02:33 | Let's search for some other colors.
I could do searches for foods, for example
| | 02:38 | coffee, and as you know by the way
that I am from New York as I say coffee
| | 02:42 | especially to say I spelled it wrong,
let's type in coffee right away now. So I
| | 02:46 | have some lovely flavors
that are here that exist.
| | 02:48 | Let's use a search for maybe some
holidays, for example New Years. And again
| | 02:53 | whatever it is I am designing, I may
want to get inspiration or work with
| | 02:56 | colors that work well with those types
of topics. Let's do a search on sunset
| | 03:00 | and again those particular colors will
now return based on the tags that other
| | 03:04 | designers have added and the themes are created.
| | 03:06 | Let's say I am really a football fan,
let's type in football and I am talking
| | 03:10 | about US Football here, so I have
lovely color that exist here as well.
| | 03:14 | But what's really great about working
with Kuler is that I can basically derive
| | 03:17 | inspiration by simply typing a keyword.
If I am doing some kind of piece that I
| | 03:21 | am working on for Valentines Day,
I will type in Valentines to get lots of rich
| | 03:24 | red colors. If I want to type in
chocolate, I can get those colors as well.
| | 03:28 | So anything that I am looking for,
I have that ability to bring in those colors
| | 03:32 | at my fingertips using the
entire community within Kuler.
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| Modifying existing color themes| 00:00 | So Kuler is this wonderful community
where you can actually derive inspiration
| | 00:04 | from colors that other designers have
created from all around the world, and
| | 00:07 | you can use the Search function or
basically go to Most Popular or Highest
| | 00:11 | Rated themes to find inspiration.
| | 00:14 | However, let's say you find a theme
of colors and you want to make small
| | 00:17 | modifications to that. Take a look at
Highest Rated ones, for example. Take a
| | 00:20 | look at Cold Lake. That's a really nice
theme to work with, but if you want to
| | 00:24 | modify it somewhat, you want to
change some of the colors that are there.
| | 00:26 | What you can do is simply move your
mouse over here to where you see these
| | 00:30 | little sliders here. This allows you
to make changes to this particular theme
| | 00:34 | that you have selected. I am going to
click on this right now and it basically
| | 00:37 | loads this theme into the Create
panel, which we've seen before.
| | 00:40 | Now, it's already set to the custom
color rule over here and that's because
| | 00:44 | these colors now exist in the harmony
or the theme that was defined by the
| | 00:48 | designer who created this. What I can
simply do is take any of these colors and
| | 00:52 | modify it just the way that I want to or
I could scroll down here and use some of
| | 00:56 | the sliders that exist here or we can
also highlight any of these particular
| | 00:59 | values and specify the values that
way. But in this way I could basically
| | 01:03 | change or modify the colors as I need to,
but I am getting a starting point by
| | 01:08 | working with something that
already inspired me from the beginning.
| | 01:11 | Once I have made my small modifications
to my color, I can then choose to add a
| | 01:15 | title, tags and then save my theme as my own.
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| Saving your favorite themes| 00:00 | I don't know about you, but as a
designer I have good color days and bad color
| | 00:04 | days. So there are many times when
you're searching through colors and you are
| | 00:08 | just struck by the certain way that a
color appears, you are inspired by that color.
| | 00:11 | A lot of times you want to be able to
capture that and save that. One way to do
| | 00:15 | that when working inside of Kuler is
to save favorites. So let's say you are
| | 00:18 | searching a particular color and you
find another color though that may inspire
| | 00:21 | you for a different project or maybe
you want to put it away and maybe whenever
| | 00:25 | another project comes up you might
want to use that. So you can do that by
| | 00:28 | saving those as favorites. So for
example, I am looking over here inside of the
| | 00:32 | Themes here for Highest Rated. Let's
say we really like this Lemon Bar theme.
| | 00:35 | I love that Lemon Bar theme. I have
nothing to use it on right now, but
| | 00:38 | I really, really like it.
| | 00:39 | What I will do is I will move my mouse
over here to this button here and now I
| | 00:43 | have added that to my Favorites.
Where do these favorites live? They live
| | 00:46 | inside of your Mykuler area of the
Kuler website. I will go ahead and I will
| | 00:49 | move my mouse over here to where it
says Mykuler and instead of seeing my own
| | 00:53 | themes over here, I have the
ability to see my favorites.
| | 00:56 | For example, I have one here for New
York Mets. I am a big Mets fan over here.
| | 00:59 | Chocolate Kiss, Brownie. These are
my favorites. At anytime when you are
| | 01:02 | working, by the way, you can always
choose over here to remove that from
| | 01:05 | Favorites. Let's say for
some reason, I don't know.
| | 01:06 | The Mets aren't playing that well lately, so
let's say I click on that and I remove that from my
| | 01:10 | Favorites. They're no longer my
favorite anymore. But you have the ability to
| | 01:13 | kind of go in and add favorites at
anytime again by clicking on the Add
| | 01:17 | Favorite button or from here from the
Mykuler page where it says favorites,
| | 01:21 | simply highlight any particular theme
and then remove that favorite as well.
| | 01:24 | This is a way for you as a designer
where as you are inspired by something say
| | 01:27 | put that aside for later and you could
always come back to your Favorites and
| | 01:30 | kind of go to those particular colors.
They're always here for you, they're your favorites.
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| Creating Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ASE) files| 00:00 | We've already seen that Kuler is a
spectacular way to be inspired about colors.
| | 00:04 | Find the themes that you want, you can
search on them, you can create your own,
| | 00:08 | you could use your own photographs,
but what do you do once you find that
| | 00:11 | color, how do you then use that color?
I mean the whole point of working with
| | 00:14 | Kuler is that you should be able to
not just see the colors, but also apply
| | 00:17 | them to the work that you are doing.
| | 00:18 | So it's great that in Kuler once you
find the color that you like, you could
| | 00:22 | then download them and use them
inside of your favorite design application.
| | 00:25 | Let's take a look at how that works.
| | 00:27 | Let me go over here to maybe one of
the most popular colors that are right
| | 00:29 | here. Scroll down some of these, some
really nice ones here Cairo Love, Arctic
| | 00:33 | Clay. Let's choose this one
here called Under alien skies.
| | 00:36 | Let's say I want to be able to use
these particular colors here. Again, I will
| | 00:39 | click over here. I will basically
take a step back from my computer screen,
| | 00:42 | especially if you have got one of
those really big like 30-inch displays.
| | 00:45 | If you like that particular theme, in
this case here I do. I am going to go
| | 00:48 | ahead and click once again to reduce
them back to their regular size. I am
| | 00:51 | going to go here and I am going to
click on this icon here called Download this
| | 00:55 | theme as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file.
What's an Adobe Swatch Exchange file?
| | 01:00 | Well, an ASE file as it's called is a
standard format that Adobe applications
| | 01:05 | can use to share colors between them.
So I will go ahead here and I will click
| | 01:09 | this and I will get a dialog box that
asks me where do I want to save that?
| | 01:13 | I am going to go ahead and choose to
save it to my desktop. It's called under
| | 01:15 | alien skies.ase.
| | 01:16 | I will choose Save and if I go here and
I close my browser for a second here,
| | 01:20 | I will see that on my desktop I now
have that file. Let's see how we actually
| | 01:24 | apply that. I am going to hop over to
Adobe Photoshop. Let's say I want to use
| | 01:27 | these colors inside of Photoshop.
| | 01:29 | Now, I am using Photoshop as an
example but in reality I can do this with any
| | 01:32 | other Adobe applications. For example,
I can do this inside of Illustrator, or
| | 01:35 | InDesign or even Adobe Flash for that matter.
| | 01:38 | I will go to my Swatches panel and in
the fly-out menu for the Swatches panel,
| | 01:41 | I am going to choose Load Swatches.
I will direct my dialog box here to my
| | 01:46 | desktop. I will choose the under alien
skies.ase file and load them. We now see
| | 01:51 | that those colors have now been added
to my particular panel right here with
| | 01:54 | all my swatches, they are ready
to use right inside of Photoshop.
| | 01:57 | I can easily do the exact same thing
inside of Illustrator. One interesting
| | 02:00 | thing to note, especially about some
Adobe applications is that rather than
| | 02:04 | just load them, I can actually choose
here to replace the swatches. In doing
| | 02:09 | so, if I now click on Load, notice
that all of the colors disappear and all I
| | 02:13 | have now are the colors that I
have just brought in from Kuler.
| | 02:16 | Now, you know how to create
wonderful colors inside of Kuler. You could
| | 02:19 | basically search through other colors.
Once you find them, download them as an
| | 02:23 | ASE file, bring them right into your
design application and design away.
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|
|
3. Participating in the Kuler CommunityRating themes| 00:00 | It's obvious that one of the things
that really make Kuler work is the fact
| | 00:04 | that it's a community. There are
other designers that are involved and of
| | 00:07 | course getting involved yourself just
basically makes Kuler that much better.
| | 00:12 | One of the cool things about working
with Kuler is that you can apply ratings
| | 00:15 | to each of the themes that you see. If
you really like something, well, speak
| | 00:18 | up and say something about it. If you
don't like something, same thing applies.
| | 00:22 | In fact the way that you apply
ratings to these particular themes inside of
| | 00:25 | Kuler is not much different than if you
have ever used iTunes for example, you
| | 00:28 | can choose to apply a star rating to
the song. If you like certain songs better
| | 00:32 | than others, you apply
more or fewer stars to that.
| | 00:35 | It works the same way. You will see
that many of them don't have much star
| | 00:38 | ratings. They were just added, so no
one has added any kind of ratings to them.
| | 00:41 | But if you go ahead and you go to, for
example, the Highest Rated ones. Well
| | 00:44 | these all have like four stars inside
of them. How do you add your own ratings?
| | 00:48 | Very simple. Let's go back to the
Newest one and let's start adding
| | 00:51 | our own particular ratings to it.
| | 00:52 | For example, there is one here called
SOS. Well that one was kind of cool,
| | 00:56 | I will give that one maybe three stars.
All you need to do is just simply mouse
| | 00:59 | over it, give it three stars and you can see right
away that you have applied your own star ratings.
| | 01:02 | See how they appear in a different
color than the ones that appear here. That
| | 01:06 | means that you have already applied
your rating to that particular theme.
| | 01:09 | Let me scroll down here for example, hey!
There is Bob Marley one, that's looks pretty
| | 01:12 | cool. Let's give that one four stars.
| | 01:14 | Let me go back now to the Most Popular
ones, for example and I will see that
| | 01:18 | those all have high star ratings.
Let's scroll down the list over here.
| | 01:21 | You can see that there are arrows down here.
This arrow just takes you to the next
| | 01:25 | listing that you have within that
Most Popular feed that you have there.
| | 01:28 | I have let's say the studyroom one.
It's got four stars? Let's give that one
| | 01:32 | just one star. But in any of the case,
if you go through these, you can really
| | 01:35 | apply your own star ratings to each of
these particular themes and over time
| | 01:39 | these themes kind of bubble up as being the
most popular ones or the highest rated ones.
| | 01:43 | So that way you really have a way to
dive in, get inspiration based on these
| | 01:47 | particular ratings, participate in the
community overall and you just get this
| | 01:50 | wonderful area where you can start to really
kind of feel as if the colors are part of you.
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| Commenting on themes| 00:00 | Conversations about color. That's what
adding comments to themes is all about.
| | 00:04 | We already know that you can apply
star ratings to the themes that you find
| | 00:08 | inside of Kuler. But you can also add
comments. Think of a blog. A lot of
| | 00:11 | people can comment on those. It
applies in the exact same way here inside of
| | 00:15 | Kuler, but on the concept of color themes.
| | 00:17 | For example, I am here inside of themes
and I am browsing through some of these
| | 00:20 | themes here. I have Tell Me I'm Pretty.
That's a cool one. You can see that some
| | 00:24 | people already added comments on that.
Let's scroll down the list over here. This
| | 00:28 | person over here says that they keep
coming back to this one, maybe it's a
| | 00:30 | title, maybe it's the aqua-grey that
they love so much, but it's got some
| | 00:33 | gravity. And it's really great that
designers can really connect and basically
| | 00:37 | find the inspiration for these colors and then
comment on them as well share them with others.
| | 00:42 | I really like this one here called
Wood Perfume. I don't what it is, but it
| | 00:44 | really has that nice feeling that I
like and I want to add a comment here.
| | 00:47 | Someone over here already added a
comment called sweet and nice. I can smell it.
| | 00:51 | It sounds great. I am going to go
over here and click on the button called
| | 00:54 | Add Comment. I really like this theme.
Don't know why, but I am attached to it.
| | 01:04 | I am going to now go ahead and choose
to Submit. And now that comment gets
| | 01:08 | added there. So again, I am
really participating this community now by
| | 01:11 | adding comments to colors.
| | 01:13 | For example, this Lemon Bar one
is fantastic. I am a big lemon
| | 01:16 | meringue fan. I like things that
are kind of sweet and tart at the same
| | 01:18 | time. Now this one here, one that's
tagged here says, Yummy. You've got to love
| | 01:21 | that, right. Imagine searching on
colors for Yummy. I will go over here and
| | 01:24 | choose Add Comment. This theme would go
great on a stick, especially in summer.
| | 01:30 | So I can go ahead and I can add that
particular comment there. I have submitted
| | 01:34 | it and now it's there. So what's great
about working with the entire community,
| | 01:38 | I guess you can say, is not only can
you apply star ratings, but you could add
| | 01:41 | comments. And I find that sometimes
designers are inspired by the comments that
| | 01:44 | other people provide.
| | 01:45 | Let's say you have a certain color
and you really like it and you say, Wow!
| | 01:48 | It'd be really cool if it also had so and so.
Well, that designer might read that
| | 01:51 | comment and go back and make
adjustments and add more things to that as well.
| | 01:55 | So it's really a way to grow that
community, to bring that inspiration up to
| | 01:58 | another higher level. And remember the
more that you comment, the more that you
| | 02:01 | participate, other designers kind of
pick up on that, they participate more,
| | 02:05 | it becomes one large conversation about
colors. Really a fantastic opportunity for
| | 02:09 | designers to interact and draw inspiration.
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| Participating in Kuler talk| 00:00 | As an online community Kuler itself is
constantly changing. Not only the colors
| | 00:05 | and the themes that exist inside of it,
but the application itself. The way that
| | 00:08 | it works and on that level, many times
designers will ask questions about why
| | 00:13 | certain things are the way they are or
how can I learn more about how to use
| | 00:16 | the application.
| | 00:17 | If you scroll down towards the bottom
of any page within Kuler, you will see
| | 00:20 | there is a button here called Kuler
Talk. By clicking on that, that actually
| | 00:24 | launches a separate web page, which is
an online forum where you can discuss
| | 00:28 | things about Kuler itself,
outside the application.
| | 00:30 | I click over here, for example, in the
general discussion and you will see many
| | 00:34 | threads that are being discussed, for
example, converting from RGB to CMYK. Or
| | 00:38 | why there are five colors in Kuler.
| | 00:40 | If you want to talk about Kuler from
an application level, what's really great
| | 00:43 | about this general discussion area is
that many of the developers from Adobe
| | 00:47 | also participate in some of the
discussions here. And because Kuler is an
| | 00:50 | online technology, Adobe can add
functionality anytime. So it's a great place
| | 00:54 | offer suggestions, feature
requests, or even log bugs.
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| Accessing member spotlights| 00:00 | Okay, fine. I will admit it. Sometimes
when you look at some of the colors that
| | 00:03 | appear inside of Kuler, I am like... (sighs)
If I can just be inside of the mind of that
| | 00:07 | designer for a moment, just to find
the inspiration where they came up with
| | 00:10 | that particular color theme, it will
be wonderful. It wouldn't be great to be
| | 00:14 | able to find the inspiration that
they had and then build on that.
| | 00:16 | A lot of times just knowing a lot
about the designers themselves give you the
| | 00:20 | inspiration to discover things on
your own. In fact, over here at Lynda.com
| | 00:23 | there is an entire series called the
Creative Inspiration series. Wonderful
| | 00:27 | ways for you to find out not really
how they do their things but kind of what
| | 00:31 | goes in their mind. How they come
up with the things that they do?
| | 00:33 | Well, what's great about Kuler itself
is that if I click over here there is a
| | 00:37 | button here called Community. That
basically allows you to kind of get a peek
| | 00:40 | inside of some of the designers who
actually create themes here inside of Kuler.
| | 00:45 | I am going to scroll down a little bit
here. It says select a spotlight. I can
| | 00:48 | choose from a variety of different
people who have already been interviewed to
| | 00:51 | find out how they get that inspiration.
For example, Scott. Scott Citron has
| | 00:56 | Scott Citron Design in New York City.
A very good friend of mine. It's a great
| | 01:00 | way going about finding out how he is
inspired by the ways that he gets color
| | 01:04 | for his design. He himself is kind of
drawn to the way that the digital world
| | 01:08 | has changed his way about
how he thinks about design.
| | 01:11 | But you can simply click on his link
over here and find other people as well.
| | 01:15 | And it's great to kind of really get
a better understanding of not just the
| | 01:18 | colors themselves, but who the people
are behind those colors. A great way to
| | 01:21 | find that here in the
Community section here in Kuler.
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4. Additional Ways to Use KulerAccessing Kuler with Illustrator CS4| 00:00 | So Kuler as online community is
available either through the website, which
| | 00:04 | is www.kuler.adobe.com. It can also
be accessed through the Kuler desktop
| | 00:08 | application. Well, Adobe has also
added functionality inside of each of the
| | 00:13 | design application themselves to
allow you to tap into the Kuler community
| | 00:18 | directly from those applications.
| | 00:20 | Let's first take a look at Adobe
Illustrator CS4. What's interesting about the
| | 00:24 | synergy between Kuler and Illustrator
is that Kuler actually began life inside
| | 00:29 | of Illustrator. The Illustrator has
certain functionality built into that
| | 00:32 | became and evolved and turned into Kuler itself.
| | 00:35 | For example, if you go over to your
panels over here, you will see something
| | 00:38 | here called the Color Guide. The Color
Guide has a whole bunch of harmonies. We
| | 00:42 | already know that those rules or
harmonies exist inside of Kuler, for example,
| | 00:46 | the Complimentary ones and the
Analogous ones, for example, those are all here
| | 00:51 | and started out inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:52 | In fact many times when I am working
inside of colors, for example, I will
| | 00:56 | click on this little folder here and
double-click on it. You will that I have
| | 00:59 | the color wheel with the same little
icons on it that I had inside of Kuler as
| | 01:02 | well. So this was a feature that was
added to Illustrator and then basically
| | 01:07 | was extended out and put on to the web
as this Kuler technology and now it has
| | 01:12 | became this Kuler community that's there.
| | 01:14 | So now that we have that functionality
built inside of Illustrator, I can also
| | 01:17 | bring Kuler directly back now into
Illustrator as well. The way that you do
| | 01:21 | that is going to the Window menu,
choosing Extensions and then choose Kuler.
| | 01:27 | That brings up the Kuler panel.
| | 01:28 | A lot of the functionality that I've
already showed you before, such as the
| | 01:32 | ability to basically search through
different possible themes or to be inspired
| | 01:36 | by themes by choosing highest rated or
most popular themes, are all available
| | 01:41 | directly here from this panel. Now
let's take a regular panel here inside of
| | 01:45 | Illustrator just like any of the others.
However you have the functionality of
| | 01:48 | accessing the web and the entire Kuler
community directly through it as well.
| | 01:52 | Let's take a look at that. I can
search through those different RSS feeds for
| | 01:56 | example Most Popular. Those load up
here in my window here as well. And let me go
| | 02:00 | to the Random one. Just random
inspiration, I want to be able to be inspired by
| | 02:04 | colors. I actually will go to the
search for these as well. So let's do a
| | 02:07 | search and let's do a search for
let's say football, for example. I could
| | 02:11 | easily find all those themes that are
inside the Kuler community directly here
| | 02:14 | inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:15 | And the great thing is I don't have to
worry about downloading an ASE file or
| | 02:18 | so on and so forth. Let's say I like
this one here called Football Season. If I
| | 02:22 | click on that, all I will need to do is
come down over here in the bottom where
| | 02:24 | it says Add Selected Themes Swatches.
Click once and that gets added as the
| | 02:29 | color group directly here inside of
my application. For example, if I mouse
| | 02:33 | over, I see Football Season is now added.
It is now available to me inside of Illustrator.
| | 02:38 | Now what's great about working with
Kuler and Illustrator is that it's a
| | 02:42 | two-way street. I can create colors
inside of Illustrator and then feed those
| | 02:47 | back into Kuler as well. Let me give
you an example. I am going to take some of
| | 02:50 | these colors that exist here. I am
telling just to hold down the Command key or
| | 02:53 | the Ctrl key if you are on Windows and
select five colors. I am going to come
| | 02:57 | down here and create a new color
group and I will call this one funstuff.
| | 03:01 | So now I have created this group on my
own. With it selected I will come down
| | 03:06 | here to the Kuler panel, click on
this button that says Upload from Swatch
| | 03:10 | panel to Kuler community. And now you
will see that Kuler will load with the
| | 03:14 | colors that I have just added there.
| | 03:15 | So I can go both ways. I can either
start off inside of Kuler, create some
| | 03:19 | colors and then access those colors
directly inside of Illustrator or I can
| | 03:23 | create my colors inside of Illustrator
and then upload those into Kuler so that
| | 03:27 | other designers can have
access to those as well.
| | 03:30 | So it's really great that you can
access Kuler, this online community, directly
| | 03:33 | in your favorite design application
Adobe Illustrator and we will soon see that
| | 03:37 | there are other ways that you can
access the exact same functionality, but
| | 03:40 | inside of other Adobe design
applications like Photoshop or InDesign as well.
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| Using Kuler with CS4 applications| 00:00 | With Adobe Creative Suite 4, Adobe has
added support for accessing the Kuler
| | 00:04 | community directly within design
application such as Photoshop, Illustrator,
| | 00:08 | InDesign, Flash and Fireworks.
| | 00:10 | Illustrator being a little bit
different, I am going to choose for this
| | 00:13 | particular video to use the Flash
application. But again what I am doing here
| | 00:17 | really applies to the other design
applications as well. In order to access
| | 00:21 | Kuler I am going to go to the Window
menu, I am going to choose Extensions,
| | 00:24 | then I will choose Kuler. Here in
this panel, I can browse through Highest
| | 00:28 | Rated, Most Popular or Newest Themes
that are added to the Kuler community.
| | 00:34 | I can click on these to see some of the
details. I can also perform searches on
| | 00:38 | different types of colors, for example,
Mint. Let's say I like some of these
| | 00:42 | particular themes here, but I want to
make some small adjustments to them. For
| | 00:45 | example this French mint one looks
here pretty cool. If I click on that, you
| | 00:49 | will see there is a little triangle on
the far right side. By clicking on that
| | 00:52 | triangle I can choose to edit this theme,
add it directly to my Swatches panel
| | 00:56 | here inside of Flash or I could view
it online inside the Kuler website.
| | 01:00 | I am going to choose Edit This Theme.
This brings me to the Create tab and
| | 01:03 | notice that I have these tabs here on
the top. I have About Kuler, which is
| | 01:06 | just general information about Kuler.
I can go to the Browse tab, which is
| | 01:10 | where we were just a minute ago, or the Create
tab where I can modify these particular colors.
| | 01:15 | By clicking and dragging on these
circles I can adjust the colors as I like.
| | 01:19 | And just like on the Kuler website,
I could change the base color or I could
| | 01:23 | choose to click on a color and remove
those colors as well. Once I am happy
| | 01:27 | with the colors that I have modified
in this particular theme, I can either
| | 01:30 | come down here and choose to add it
directly to my Swatches panel here inside
| | 01:33 | of Flash or I can upload them back onto
the Kuler website for me to publish as well.
| | 01:38 | So overall, the great thing about Kuler
is that it's content that is available
| | 01:42 | for many different areas. I can
either be inside of my website, I can use
| | 01:46 | desktop applications or I could find
the inspiration for the color that I need
| | 01:49 | right here inside of my application in
context to my design and get right to work.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Thanks for taking the time to learn
about Adobe's online color community, Kuler.
| | 00:04 | I hope that I have bee able to
inspire you not only in finding ways to
| | 00:08 | experiment with color, but also to engage
with others in the overall design community.
| | 00:12 | In fact, I would love to see the
colors that you create with Kuler. When you
| | 00:17 | create your next theme, add the tag
Lynda. That way I will be able to search
| | 00:21 | for your themes and comment on them.
I look forward to seeing your colors.
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