Experimenting with the Live Color options in Illustrator to add new life to a complex piece of artwork.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since.
Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination.
Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the “go to” guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics.
As an Adobe Certified Expert, he’s provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
Amazing that you managed to make this video about ten times as much informative than everything I have seen about Live Color so far. Thanks.
(Btw. I wrote some time ago about the color to Pantone thing if sombody would like to keep a reference http://font.is/?p=1293 )
Jeff; How do change one of the colors to a color in your swatches library? Dave
Hi Sigudur,
Glad you liked it.
The CMYK > Spot trick is a real timesaver.
Best,
Jeff
Hi Dave,
I’m not sure I would use Live Color for this.
It might be easier to select one object that is the color that you wish to change. Go under the Select menu>Select Same>Fill Color (or Stroke Color). Then just choose you replacement Swatch from the Swatches panel.
Best,
Jeff
Hi Dave,
Ive done that last trick you showed a few times and then when I actually went to the pantone book and matched it to what I printed out, they weren’t even close. Is there another setting that I need to make sure is active? Thanks for the other tips!
Hi Dersu,
Which Pantone Library did you use? Depending on the original colors, if you’re using one of the Spot Libraries, you’re right, the results may not be accurate at all. Try Pantone Color Bridge CMYK PC. You may have better luck.
And depending on what desktop printer you’re using, results can vary vastly.
All my best,
Jeff
how i can get color artwork option
This is the simpliest and clearest description yet on how to use the live colour. Want to tuck this video in my pocket.
Hi Caroline,
Glad you like the video.
I tried my best to get as much into a short tutorial as possible. And there’s so much to love about Live Color, it was not easy.
All my best,
Jeff
Thanks for this very nice tuts
I tried to do it and it’s cool to change colors.
This guy’s voice is soooo annoying
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