I have an image of a beautiful Betta Siemese fighting fish and I'd like to create a new color group based on the colors that appear in the image. I placed the image on my artboard in Illustrator and want to know if there is a way that Illustrator can identify the colors and create a color group accordingly. So far, I clicked on the image on the artboard, clicked the New Color Group icon, selected the option Create from Selected Artwork selection in the popup window and clicked OK. However, the folder that is created does not contain any of the swatches. It comes up as an empty color group. If anyone knows how to get this to work, please share. Thanks a million! ~ Staci Jc
2 Answers
Use the Live Trace feature on your placed image. Go to Window > Object > Image Trace, and pick some options which allow you to get a traced art object in color. Now, expand your tracing by pressing the "Expand" button which should have appeared on your top bar of the Illustrator application. Only after this, would your raster image be converted into Illustrator shapes, so now you can create a new color group and you will find it populated with the swatches rather than empty.
Place the image
In the swatches below there is icon like folder (new color group) click on it and a pop name it.
Now click on the eye droppper and select the color
As soon as you click on the color the color is shown.
Drag that color onto the folder you have made it.
