Well, all these shapes in black and white are nice, but let's move out of the dark ages, and start our own renaissance. Let's add some color! Illustrator has lots of options when it comes to coloring objects. Besides solid colors, Illustrator can fill objects with gradients and patterns--all customizable. Illustrator also has support for custom colors such as Pantone, TRUMATCH, and even web-specific colors (for use on the World Wide Web). Throughout this chapter we discuss each of these in detail, including:
In Illustrator, each object has two attributes: a fill and a stroke (see Figure 9.1). As we'll soon see, Illustrator has several kinds of fills and strokes. You can give a fill and a stroke to just about any object (with the exception of a mask), even one that is an open path (see Figure 9.2).
Each object has a fill and a stroke.
Illustrator fills an open path by using the two open points as a boundary.
At the bottom of the Toolbox are the Fill and Stroke indicators (see Figure 9.3). These are very similar to Photoshop's Foreground and Background color indicators. The box to the upper left is the Fill indicator, and the one to the lower right is the Stroke indicator. You can click either one to make it active, or you can press X to toggle between them. When the Fill box is selected, any changes you make in the Color palette are applied to the fill of a selected object, and the same is true for the Stroke.
Illustrator's Fill and Stroke indicators.
There are two more icons there: One with little arrows to the upper right, and one with little boxes to the lower right. Clicking the arrows swaps the fill and stroke, meaning if the fill is currently white and the stroke is black, clicking the arrow makes the fill black and the stroke white. Clicking the little boxes sets the fill and stroke to Illustrator's default setting (as does pressing D), which is a white fill and black stroke. Note that this does not affect the weight (thickness) of the stroke.
Just A Minute: When changing the color of the fill or stroke, any object that is selected while you make the change will take on the new color attributes. If no object is selected, the next object you create will take on the new color attributes you just set.
Illustrator's Color palette, shown in Figure 9.4, consists of a single large swatch, a color slider (or sliders) with percentage boxes, and a color bar, which, depending on what colors are selected, is either a color spectrum or a grayscale/tint ramp. If all you see is the color bar, select Show Options from the palette menu (see Figure 9.5).
Illustrator's Color palette.
Selecting Show Options in the Color palette.
Illustrator works with any of four different color models: CMYK, grayscale, RGB, and HSB. To quickly cycle through each of the color models, hold down the Shift key, and click the big swatch in the Color palette (see Figure 9.6).
Shift-clicking the swatch in the Color palette cycles through each of Illustrator's four color models.
To select a color, either click anywhere in the color spectrum or tint ramp, or adjust the sliders manually by clicking on the little triangles and dragging them to the left and right. You can also enter percentages manually by clicking in the field, entering a number, and pressing the Tab key to advance to the next field, or Shift-Tab to go back to the previous field.
Time Saver: After you put the "focus" into the color palette, you can quickly move through all the fields by pressing the Tab key. If you have other palettes docked to it as well, such as the Gradient or Stroke palette, you can cycle through those fields as well. To put Illustrator's focus into the last used palette, press (Command-~)[Control-~].
Time Saver: Illustrator's slider bars are very intuitive and change color as you drag to approximate other colors. You can also hold down the Shift key while dragging any one slider and all sliders move proportionately, making it easy to get lighter or darker shades of process colors.
I mentioned that Illustrator supports four different color models. Illustrator also enables you to have colors from different color models within the same document (see the following Note). It's important to keep this in mind as you work on each project. Some jobs may require that you work in CMYK, others in RGB, and so on. In order to assure that your finished artwork looks as you intended it to be, make sure you are using the right color model from the beginning. Switching between color models after a job is in progress or finished may result in color shifts and changes.
Just A Minute: Although Illustrator lets you have a document containing colors from different color models, that doesn't mean you should do it. In fact, it can be very bad. If you are working on a job that will be printed, use only the CMYK or Grayscale color model. If you are doing multimedia work, use RGB or HSB. Using different color models within the same document can make for non-consistent color shifts and can become a production nightmare.
The CMYK color model (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) is the standard for most of today's offset printing and is also known as four-color process. If your color artwork will be printed on paper, you're most probably going to create it in CMYK. To select a CMYK color from the Color palette, either Shift-click to cycle through the color models until CMYK shows up, or choose CMYK from the palette menu (see Figure 9.7).
Choosing the CMYK color model.
For black and white work, use grayscale, which supports 256 levels of gray. You have the ability to create different percentages of black. In this mode, the Color palette has a grayscale ramp to choose different percentages (see Figure 9.8).
The grayscale ramp in the Color palette.
The RGB color model (red, green, and blue) is the standard used for today's televisions and computer monitors. If you are designing work for multimedia applications or for the World Wide Web, use the RGB color palette. RGB colors have a much wider range, or gamut, and have more colors that are brighter than CMYK. For more information on web colors, see Hour 23, "Web Graphics."
The HSB color model (hue, saturation, and brightness) is not as widely used and is based upon the human perception of color. The hue value determines which color you get, while saturation determines how intense that color is, and brightness determines how light or dark it is. In most cases, though, if you are using HSB colors, you will eventually have to convert them to RGB or CMYK for output.
Though not a color model, there is another kind of color supported within Illustrator: custom colors. A custom color is a predefined color that you can either create or choose from a list such as Pantone, Focoltone, TOYO, or TRUMATCH. Custom colors are also called spot colors. These are standard colors that have been designated to assure color accuracy.
The Pantone system, for example, was created so that when a designer wanted to print red, he could specify a Pantone number, which a printer could match exactly by using a red ink, instead of producing the color with a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. Custom colors act the same way as grayscale does. You can specify a tint of a custom color, and the Color palette looks identical.
Included with Illustrator are several useful custom color libraries. These include DICCOLOR, FOCOLTONE, PANTONE (coated, process, and uncoated), TOYO, and TRUMATCH, plus system palettes for both Macintosh and Windows for multimedia work. Illustrator also has a wonderful color-safe web palette for use when creating art for the World Wide Web.
To load any of these palettes, choose Swatch Libraries from the Window menu (see Figure 9.9), and choose one of the libraries. But let's say you went through all the trouble of creating your own custom colors in one document, and you want to use them in another one. That's when you select Other Library from the submenu (see Figure 9.10), after which Illustrator asks you to locate another Illustrator file, and imports its custom colors.
Choosing a custom color library.
Importing custom colors from another Illustrator file.
Imagine if every time you wanted to apply a color, you had to enter the percentages of that color in the Color palette. Besides being a pain, it would also be a big waste of time. That's where the Swatches palette comes in. A swatch is a color that you define. It can be a process color, a spot color, or even a gradient or pattern, as we'll soon see. After you define a swatch, you can apply it to any object. You can also edit and modify an existing swatch.
Let's take a look at the Swatches palette (see Figure 9.11). If the palette is not already open, press F5 to open it, or choose Show Swatches from the Window menu.
The Swatches palette.
First, notice the little "chicklet" icons across the bottom of the palette. From the left, the first one is Show All Swatches. The next three are for Color, Gradient, and Pattern swatches, respectively. At first glance, the palette may look too messy, and it may be difficult to determine what's what. By clicking the color, gradient, or pattern icons, you can choose to view only those swatches, making it easier to choose a swatch (see Figure 9.12).
The chicklet icons on the bottom of the Swatches palette. Notice that only the gradient swatches are shown.
Next are the New Swatch and Trash icons. Clicking the New Swatch icon creates a new swatch with whatever color is currently selected. (Selected swatches have a white border.) Clicking the Trash icon deletes any selected swatch. To select a swatch, simply click it. You can select several contiguous swatches by holding down the Shift key, or you can select non-contiguous swatches by holding the (Command)[Control] key when selecting the swatches (see Figure 9.13).
Selecting multiple swatches with the (Command)[Control] key.
Time Saver: Illustrator has drag-and-drop capabilities. You can delete swatches by dragging them into the Trash icon, and you can also create a duplicate swatch by dragging an existing swatch on top of the New Swatch icon. You can drag colors between the Fill and Stroke indicators, the Color palette, and even between custom color and Swatches palettes!
Double-clicking a swatch brings up the Swatch Options dialog box (see Figure 9.14). You can then edit the name of the swatch, as well as determine whether it should be a spot or process color. If you want to change the values of an existing swatch, follow these steps:
The Swatch Options dialog box.
2. In the Color palette, edit the color.
3. When you're done editing the color, click and drag the color swatch.
4. While still pressing the mouse, hold down the (Option)[Alt] key, and drag the color swatch (either the one in the Colors palette or the one in the Toolbox) on top of the swatch you want to edit in the Swatches palette.
You'll notice that some swatches have a small dot in the lower-right corner. The dot indicates that the swatch is a spot color. You can also change the order of the swatches simply by dragging and moving them around.
Illustrator also gives you three ways to view the Swatches palette: Name, Small Swatch, or Large Swatch (see Figure 9.15). To choose a viewing mode, select a choice from the palette menu. You can also select the functions we've mentioned earlier, such as Duplicate Swatch and Delete Swatch, as well as sort the swatches by kind or name (see Figure 9.16). When you view swatches by name, an icon on the far right of the swatch name indicates whether the swatch is spot or process.
The three viewing modes of the Swatches palette.
Sorting the swatches through the palette menu.
Time Saver: Although there is no swatch in the Swatches palette for the None attribute, remember that there is a keyboard shortcut for it. To quickly fill an object or stroke it with None, press the slash (/) key. Whether the fill or stroke of the selected object is changed to None depends on the focus of the Fill and Stroke icons on the Toolbox.
Time Saver: After you put the focus into the Swatches palette (Command-~)[Control-~], you can type the first few letters of a color, or the numbers of a Pantone color, and Illustrator jumps to that swatch. Press Enter to bring the focus back into your artwork.
The Eyedropper tool, as shown in Figure 9.17, is used to sample colors for use in applying those colors and attributes to other objects. Say you have a shape with one color, for example, and you want it to be the color of another shape. Without deselecting your shape, you can switch to the Eyedropper tool and click the other object. This colors your selected object to be the same as the one you double-clicked on.
The Eyedropper tool.
You can also press and hold down the mouse while using the Eyedropper tool, and then drag anywhere to sample the pixel color of anything on your screen (in real time, I might add--it's cool to watch the colors zip through the Fill indicator).
To control exactly which attributes the Eyedropper (and Paint Bucket) picks up, double-click the Eyedropper tool in the Toolbox. Illustrator presents you with a comprehensive dialog box where you can specify settings for picking up strokes and fills (see Figure 9.18).
Figure 9.18.
Specifying options for the Eyedropper and Paint Bucket tools.
Working in tandem with the Eyedropper tool, the Paint Bucket tool, as shown in Figure 9.19, applies colors to unselected objects. You just click an object and Illustrator fills that object with whatever color is selected.
The Paint Bucket tool.
If you press the (Option)[Alt] key with the Paint Bucket
tool selected, it toggles to the Eyedropper tool and vice versa. This makes it simple
to quickly sample a color and apply it to other objects.
What a colorful hour! We learned all about the different kinds of colors Illustrator uses, and we learned how to create and edit swatches of colors. We also learned about two new palettes: the Swatches palette and the Color palette. Next hour, we learn what we can do with all of these wonderful colors.
Color model--A specific defined color space such as CMYK, RGB, or HSB.
Custom color--A color defined in Illustrator that separates to its own plate. See Spot color.
Spot color--A specified color that is independent of any other colors in a job, and separates to its own plate.
Swatch--Illustrator's metaphor for a defined color, pattern, or gradient.
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