- In this movie, we'll discuss the two document color modes that are available to you inside Illustrator, and those are RGB and CMYK. And only one mode can be at work inside any given document. And so you may recall, if you go up to the file menu and choose the New command, that you can see the color mode listed down here in the Advanced section, and that's going to change automatically when you select a profile so if you select a print profile, your color mode is going to change to CMYK, but if you switch to any of the other profiles, web through basic RGB, all four of them are going to switch the color mode to RGB, which is generally the way you're going to want to work, which surprises a lot of folks, but the truth to the matter is that RGB is the more flexible color mode while CMYK is designed specifically for print.
And, so, let's take a look at how they work. Both RGB and CMYK stand for the color primaries so in the case of RGB, we have red, green and blue and these are light, by the way, so light that's being projected by a device or captured by a device. So scanners and cameras are RGB devices, as is your computer screen, your gadgets and devices and anything else that lights up. Now because you're starting with a black screen, once you add light, you're going to start brightening things up and to give you a sense for what this looks like, I'll go up to the Window menu and choose Color in order to bring up the color panel, in my case, there's a check mark in front of color so I don't want to choose the command because that would hide it, and then, once you've brought up your color panel, go ahead and click on this double arrow icon a couple of times to expose your primary sliders.
In my case, red, green and blue. If you don't see the RGB sliders, then you want to click on this fly out menu icon in the upper right corner of the panel and choose RGB. Now, notice that you can change these values from 0, that's the lowest, that basically turns the color off, all the way up to 255, which is the highest setting, and so what that does is it gives you 256 variations. 1 through 255 and then you also have the option of 0.
And so when you crank up the red and green values, and you take the blue value all the way down to its minimum, you end up with yellow. If you crank the green and blue values up to 255, and you take the red value all the way down to 0, then you end up with cyan, and if you take the blue and red values all the way up to 255, and you take that green value down to 0, then you end up with magenta, and I want you to notice here inside the color panel how these sliders update on the fly so you can actually preview the color you're going to get.
If I move this triangle mid-way down the red slider, I can see I'm going to get purple, and I can also by the way, as I modify the red value, I can see the green and blue sliders update on the fly. And so Illustrator's always trying to give you a sense for the color that you're going to get because, obviously, there's all kinds of colors besides red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, and magenta. For example, if I crank all these values up to their maximum, we end up with the brightest color there is, which is white, and if we were to take all these values down to their minimum of 0, then we'd end up with no light, which gives us black.
Alright, now let's take a look at CMYK, which is named for the primaries cyan, magenta, yellow and the key color which is black. And as opposed to light, these are inks, and so unlike a screen, where you start with blackness and then you brighten things up, where print is concerned, you start with a bright white page and then you darken things by adding ink to it, which is why when you start mixing the primaries, you end up with darker colors. And so what I'll do is I'll go ahead and click on this fly out menu icon again and switch to CMYK so we can see those CMYK sliders and I'm going to go ahead and crank cyan and magenta up to their maximums of 100% and I'm going to take the yellow and black values down to their minimums of 0% and so as you can see here, when you maximize the cyan and magenta values, and you take out yellow and black, you end up with blue.
If you crank up the magenta and yellow values, and then you take the cyan and black values down to 0, you end up with red, so who knew that red is actually made in part with yellow? And then, if you crank the yellow and cyan values up to their maximum, not surprisingly, you end up with green, but notice that it's not nearly as bright as the RGB green so we're ending up with more muted colors over here. I'm not showing what happens when you add black, and that's because black is a darkening agent, as you can see, so in our case, we're ending up with the darker version of green.
So the big question is, "When should you choose which color mode?" Well, you want to use the RGB mode any time you think your document might be viewed on screen so if you're going to the web or you're creating a .PDF file or an e-book, you want RGB. If you're creating something for a device or an app, then you want RGB. Video is RGB. Presentations such as PowerPoint or KeyNote graphics, those should be RGB documents. If you're creating something for a kiosk or any other screen, you want RGB, and then here's the ringer.
If you're doing personal printing, that is, you're printing to a device at your home or office, and it's an inkjet device, then you should definitely go with RGB and I know that sounds crazy, but here's the thing: inkjet printers have more than CMY and K. They tend to have as many as eight inks, and as a result, they can print way more colors than you can get with conventional CMYK, and they're actually expecting RGB documents, and they'll do a much better job of printing RGB documents and matching the colors than they will with CMYK.
The function of CMYK, by contrast, is very limited. You want to use CMYK when you're creating a document for pre-press. That is, to say, you're going to ultimately be taking the document to a professional print house for commercial reproduction so if you're creating a conventional book or a magazine, then CMYK is the way to go. That's really it, by the way. The only other time you'd use CMYK is because you're doing personal printing to a toner-based CMYK laser printer so in other words, your laser printer only has cyan, magenta, yellow and black toner, and in that case, then CMYK is going to give you a better sense for how your document will look, but even then, you may want to use RGB instead because the printer driver is going to make the conversion to CMYK for you, but your colors are going to diminish.
So take a look at this rainbow over here on the right hand side. Currently, we're working inside of a RGB document and you can see up here in the title tab. There it is right there, RGB. But notice if I go up to the file menu, choose document color, and convert this document to CMYK, which you can do anytime you like, watch what happens to this rainbow right there. It diminishes like crazy. We just lose all kinds of colors. Also notice what happened, I'll go ahead and press CTRL + Z or CMD +Z on a Mac to undo that change, Notice what happens to the RGB green and magenta.
They end up looking like this, and so CMYK is fairly notorious for dropping out bright greens, bright blues and bright purples. You really lose them like crazy so, in other words, unless you absolutely have to work in CMYK, then you should be working with RGB. And that's how the the two color modes work, RGB and CMYK, here inside Illustrator.
Author
Released
3/3/2017As Creative Cloud evolves, this course gets updated. Check back for new movies, new feature reviews, and new ways to work.
- Opening, creating, saving, and closing documents
- Working with artboards
- Zooming and panning
- Drawing lines, arcs, grids, and spirals
- Drawing shapes
- Creating compound paths
- Working in RGB vs. CMYK color modes
- Creating and applying swatches
- Adjusting the line weight of strokes
- Formatting text
- Building custom paths with the Shape Builder and Join tools
- Freeform drawing with the Pencil
- Painting and erasing artwork
- Painting with a tablet
- Drawing with the Curvature tool
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
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Introduction
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Welcome to One-on-One4m 21s
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1. Working with Documents
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Creating a new document5m 20s
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Saving your changes7m 46s
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2. Working with Artboards
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Using the Artboard tool8m 6s
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Undo, Redo, and Revert3m 16s
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Artboard tips and tricks4m 46s
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Autoarranging artboards6m 41s
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Artboards and rulers7m 26s
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3. Getting Around
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Zooming in and out5m 59s
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Cycling between screen modes6m 38s
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4. Drawing Lines
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Now, we draw44s
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Creating center guides8m 3s
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Using the Line Segment tool6m 55s
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Drawing straight lines5m 25s
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Duplicating and extending5m 19s
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Using the Move command5m 19s
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Joining your line segments5m 23s
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Using the Arc tool6m 45s
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Using the Polar Grid tool3m 29s
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Using the Spiral tool7m 31s
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5. Drawing Shapes
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Using the Ellipse tool7m 45s
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Live ellipses and pies4m 44s
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Creating compound paths7m 1s
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Using the Rectangle tool5m 40s
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Using the crazy Flare tool6m 19s
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6. Color and Swatches
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How color works1m 7s
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Working with global swatches5m 43s
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7. Strokes, Dashes, and Arrows
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Adjusting the line weight4m 42s
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Caps, joins, and miter limit6m 25s
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Dashes and arrowheads7m 24s
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Variable-width strokes5m 58s
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Combining multiple strokes4m 18s
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8. Creating and Formatting Type
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Text at its best1m 2s
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Setting up page margins7m 54s
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Placing and flowing text5m 34s
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Working with point type7m 4s
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Formatting display text7m 39s
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Formatting body copy5m 59s
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Creating a drop cap3m 39s
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Resolving widows and orphans4m 49s
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Redefining a paragraph style6m 48s
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Creating type on a path7m 47s
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9. Building Custom Paths
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Using the Join command6m 26s
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Using the Join tool4m 16s
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Creating an inset reflection6m 32s
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Drawing with the Shaper tool5m 31s
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10. Using the Pencil Tool
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Creating a tracing template3m 28s
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11. Painting and Erasing
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The best tools for painting1m 27s
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Merging selected paths4m 58s
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Releasing compound paths6m 7s
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Erasing and smoothing lumps6m 13s
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12. Using the Curvature Tool
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Drawing one point at a time1m 46s
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Curvature tool curiosities4m 32s
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Creating quick smooth shapes6m 29s
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13. Using the Pen Tool
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Creating corner points6m 55s
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How smooth points work6m 51s
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Drawing smooth points7m 55s
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Creating cusp points6m 34s
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Using the Anchor Point tool5m 32s
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Drawing perspective edges5m 48s
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Drawing a few distress marks10m 1s
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A preview of round corners9m 26s
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14. Drawing with Round Corners
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Making corners smooth1m 7s
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The round corner widget3m 44s
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Rounding off corner points4m 54s
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Changing the corner type3m 37s
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Rounding characters of type6m 15s
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Decorating an iPhone screen6m 37s
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Reshaping rounded paths9m 40s
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15. Making Screen Graphics
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Saving an 8-bit graphic6m 32s
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Saving a JPEG image5m 10s
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Assigning a copyright3m 7s
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Using the Asset Export panel4m 42s
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Conclusion
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Until next time1m 30s
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Video: The color modes: RGB vs. CMYK