Logo with multiplied transparency blending option won't show up on black - Illustrator

Question

I'm running into a very frustrating issue. I have a logo element that the client specifically asked for: a hand-painted circle. So I painted the circle, scanned it, did an image trace to vectorize it, and it looks great. On a white background. But with a different color background, the image presents some problems.

Case (left: looks great on white; right: not so great...):

I tried (a million different things, including) using the 'Multiply' blending option to make the white transparent. Which works(ish), except on dark backgrounds (due to the darkening effect of Multiply, which just makes it disappear on black).

Case (left: logo element doesn't show enough on darker backgrounds; right: doesn't show at all on black background):

Any suggestions on how to get the messy white out of the original logo without making it look chunky and choppy or compromising the color of the logo (i.e., the same appearance as on the white background, but on any different color background)? Obviously this will be part of a logo, so it is necessary that it be versatile in its placement on websites, stationery, etc.

Answer 1

Your problem is that image trace creates solid colors but you want varying levels of opacity.

Manually recreating the colors isn't quick but it is relatively easy. Obviously the less colors you have, the easier it will be—so try to create your image trace with as little colors as you can.

First create swatches out of all the colors. You can do this by selecting the whole object and choosing New Color Group from the swatch dropdown. This will create a new group of swatches from all the colors in the selected artwork.

The easiest way I can think of doing this manually is to draw a square for each color in a row. Duplicate the squares to a new row below and set the color of all the bottom squares to the main color. Then all you have to do is work through the bottom row of squares adjusting the opacity untill it matches the square above it.

This is what I came up with in a few minutes:

To replace the colors in your artwork with your newly created transparent colors, work through each color in turn doing the following:

1. Select the original color sqaure (top row)
2. Select → Same → Fill Color
3. with the Eyedropper Tool (I) click the new transparent color (bottom row)

Do this for each color and your artwork is now transparent:

Answer 2

If you don't want it to look 'vectorized', you could use Photoshop's 'Select Colour Range' tool to select the marone regions of the logo, then create a new layer and 'Fill' the selection with the same colour. You'd have th play around with the sensitivity of the tool, but this would result in a shape with properly transparent areas that would work on both light and dark backgrounds.

Answer 3

I recommend preparing the image in Photoshop before you go for the image trace in Illustrator. Make all the white transparent in PSD and then vectorize in Illustrator.