Global Color Correction in Adobe Illustrator
Ever want to recolor your vector art, just a little, or adjust the levels like it was a photo in Adobe Photoshop? You can! I was recently introduced to an amazing, powerful and very underutilized tool in Adobe Illustrator. It is the edit color option under the edit menu. Through this tool you can alter many aspects of the color of any object selected, such as hue, levels and saturation. There is nothing to expand afterwards and new colors are auto loaded to your swatches palette.You will be able to easily recolor purchased stock art to match your project by selecting a color harmony from the subsequent pop up window. Revise entire color schemes when your client decides they want a purple brochure, not a green one. Making logos 1 Pantone color is very simple using the color option. There are also 2 and 3 color options.
To use this tool, select the parts of your illustration you would like to alter, choose edit > edit colors. You must repeat this process to make changes, but it is much simpler than doing so item by item.
Select Edit Colors in the edit menu:
Then, choose the color you would like to change to by clicking on the swatch in the bottom left corner of the pop up window.
The best use of this tool that I have found so far is turning color vector images to grayscale. This comes in super handy when creating ads for different publications and uses of logos. To use convert to grayscale, select the parts of your illustration you would like to alter, choose edit > edit colors > convert to grayscale. This is illustrated below.
Make your selection:
Result:
Experiment and enjoy!
*This tool only works on vector images, you will have to change your raster images in photoshop and re-import the old fashioned way.
**This tool is available in version CS3 of Adobe Illustrator and above.
