How to add the colors of one of my clipart images to the swatches panel.
Editing colors in Adobe Illustrator doesn’t need to be a painstaking process of selecting a thousands of individual elements in a design one at a time. You can edit the colors throughout the entire design with a few clicks of the mouse.
I addressed basics like Changing Colors in Adobe Illustrator in a previous tutorial.
How to:
- Locate and eliminate identical colors
- Find Missing Colors
- Add the colors to the swatches panel
In the previous tutorial I also talked about the swatches panel and how to use it to edit, delete, or merge colors. But what if the colors in the image aren’t actually showing up in the panel or there are multiple versions of an identical color? Instances like this can be a nightmare for printers because Illustrator might not recognize these colors when outputting them as color separations.
The Swatches Panel
Adding colors from the images.
Sometimes when you open an image your swatches panel will not populate or will only partially populate with the colors in the design. In cases like this you will need to add the colors from the design manually. Notice that the swatches panel is empty even though the design has multiple colors.
We need to add colors from the design into the swatches panel
Begin by selecting a shape with the color you want to add by using the super-select arrow tool. This tool allows you to select a portion of a grouped element without ungrouping the entire selection. As you can see that color now shows up in the color panel.
The next step is to select every element in the entire design that is that same color. We do this by choosing the “select’ dropdown menu and “same” and “fill color”. (You may need to choose a different option which is more appropriate for your image, but you get the idea.) Now every aspect of the design with that color should be selected.
Change your focus back to the “Color” panel. Open the pulldown menu at the top right of color panel and select “create new swatch”.
It will open up a new window that allows you to edit your color if you want to. (Don’t forget to change the name*) Click “OK” and your color will add to the swatch panel. See below for “Spot Color” vs “Process Color” information.
* Helpful hint, unique names help to avoid problems down the road.
Make sure you didn't miss any colors.
Once you have added all of your colors to the panel you need to check to see if you missed any. Merge all of the colors in the swatches panel and then double click on the one remaining swatch. I addressed how to do this in this tutorial. (You will undo this in a moment.)
In this case I missed a black that I didn’t know about.
Undo the merge (Command Z) until all of the original colors are back. Finally, repeat the previous color selection steps to add additional black to your colors panel.
Clean up your panel by merging similar colors and you are ready to go.
Just add text and design elements for a quick shirt design.
Add some text, some outlines, and an element or two and you have a finished logo in no time whatsoever. These techniques will be discussed in additional tutorials.
A quick note about spot colors versus process colors.
T Shirt printers use spot colors most of the time. Spot colors make pre-press easier and allows them to print the actual color (Ex. Purple or Green). Process colors use 4 colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) blended together in various combinations to create a single color. Process colors are used primarily on paper, banners, websites etc. and can be used for t-shirt printing. However, process printing on colored garments can create problems and is difficult. Therefor most screen-printers will prefer spot colors. Check with your printer to find out which method they prefer.
I hope you found this short tutorial on editing colors in Adobe Illustrator helpful. There are more short Illustrator tutorials in my hints and secrets area. Don’t forget to browse my clipart images before you start your next t-shirt design project.
Need a printer for your t-shirts and team apparel? Call my print shop at 1-800-315-9411 for a quote or visit us at ChromaCustomApparel.com
