Using "recolor artwork" to only have certain set colors

Question

I often adapt illustrations to fit brand guidelines. It usually is a tedious task when I have to select each color by hand.

So I've been trying to make sense of the "Recolor Artwork" feature... I know how to define my brand colors in a Library or a Swatch, but I haven't found a way to restrict the colors in an illustration to my defined swatches. I don't have anything under under "Color groups" in the "Recolor Artwork" window. In the "Color reduction Options" I've tried everything, I always end up with either horrible value swaps (dark shades from my swatches to replace bright ones?), or a lot of the original colors still there. "Colorize methods" don't seem to make a lot of sense.

_{In the "Edit" tab - although the user-defined "swatchez" is selected, more than half the colors on the wheel are from the original document, not from the swatch document}

_{Here are some Color Reduction Options that seem like they should make sense...}

_{... but then the document still has 36 "Current colors" - a lot of which are from the original colors, not from the swatch. The swatch library is selected in both windows, "Recolor Artwork" and "Color Reduction Options"...}

_{The colors in the Swatch file used}

_{The "Recolorized" illustration. In several shades of grey and one purple.}

I want to make sure that when I recolor, all the original colors of the illustration are totally gone from the "Current colors" list and replaced with the closest color from my swatch.

How do I replace the colors in a vector illustration with the closest match from a set of user-defined swatches?

Answer 1

I was going to suggest reviewing the help on Recolor Artwork if you haven't - but as I searched for a link I see there's really nothing very helpful available -- shame on Adobe!

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There's no such thing as "closest match" in Recolor artwork. Illustrator and the color engine simply aren't that smart.

For general replacement Recolor Artwork uses Color Harmony Rules. Which is that bar in the top of the window.

Now, is this helpful? To me - heck NO! I have no clue what the math, theory, or algorithms are when these are used. I find no real documentation anywhere and have never been able to accurately predict how changing the harmony will alter color application. But.. in theory.. this is what Adobe thinks is helpful and a way to restrict or direct how colors are replaced. If you figure it out.. please post a Q/A so I can know, because I'm clueless here. :)

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What I do is count colors and swatch positions.

So If I have 4 colors....

I create a color group with the same amount of swatches, and order them in the way I want them replaced.

So, if I want to change which color is replaced by what other color, I merely reorder the new color group swatches...

So, merely by altering the order of the swatches within the group I control color replacement in a more logical, predictable, manner.

The key thing is to create your own color groups in the Swatch Panel.

The Swatches Panel is where you can directly edit colors within a group.... and then the groups show up in the Recolor Artwork Dialog.

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When exploring replacements, you can drag the New color boxes around in the Assign tab to change replacements. Then when you have the order you want, click the Save icon to update the color group - which essentially merely changes the order of the colors.

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Also, it may be helpful to realize that black, white, and greys are considered "sacred' colors in a way. If you want those values to change you have to tell Recolor Artwork that they can change....

Click the little "pref" icon in the center of the window...

Then in the Color Reduction Options untick Black, White, or Grey, under the Preserve area...

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_{Truth be told an entire book could be written on this feature alone. Adobe's documentation is horribly lacking. I haven't seen the Classroom in Book area covering this, so maybe it's better. But online or in-app, there's hardly any direct information and most of the things I found were merely cursory and/or "one shot tutorial" type of stuff. It's a rather in-depth feature with myriad options and settings. (CS6 screenshots, but it's the same in newer versions, other than the window chrome)}

Answer 2

This is what I found out and learned today, after trial and error and thanks to other answers.

1 - Create a Swatch file with the desired colors

Open an AI document, make shapes, give them a fill, select the shapes, and in the Swatches panel, click the menu-with-no-name, "New Color Group", check "Selected artwork", and "Include swatches for tints”

2 - Then save the Swatch document from the menu with no name > "Save Swatch Library as .ASE". Save to your Desktop for example.

You can then close / delete the document with the boxes.

3 - Open the illustration that needs to be recolored, do not select any object at the moment, and delete all the Swatches except black and white in the Swatches panel.

4 - In the Swatches panel, open the file saved in step 2

In the Menu with no name > "Open Swatch Library".

5 - Click the little grey folder to the left side of the colors

Your color swatch will then magically appear (finally!) in the Swatches of your current illustration.

6 - Select the whole illustration

7 - Click Edit > Recolor Artwork, then select the Swatch in "Color Groups".

The brand colors you defined should now replace the old ones. To see various possibilities, click the "Randomly change color order" button.

Answer 3

After making a Color Group with your swatches, select the artwork and the color group and click the Recolor Artwork icon at the swatches panel. The Recolor Artwork Icon is not at the Swatches Panel, only appear when a color group is selected.

From the Recolor Artwork panel change the color position to match the brightness and saturation of each color:

You can speed up the work if the new color group is arranged it from dark to light, in this way you will only have to move the left color column (the current colors)

Answer 4

You put your swatches in a group; yo make a new group in the recolour tool, you manually recolour the relative swatches as needed, and can then switch between swatch groups in the selected items as you see fit.

You can also use the lovely colour wheel tool for interactive recolouring... but that's of limited use if you already know the requisite values!

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After comments:

You can quickly get to this all from the Swatches Palette if you select a group, BTW:

Hope this helps.

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OP MicroMachine answered their own question by aggregating all the data from our answers - and I like the workflow they developed (though you don't need to do the swatch creation in a separate file, BTW) and applied it herein as a test - like it; great way to iterate, and either use given swatches as jumping-off points or hard limits.