One of my Illustrator support clients picks all of the colors for his cartoons using the CMYK versions of PMS colors. This usually works out just fine, but sometimes the colors that are available in the PMS library are not quite right. Recently he called to ask, “Is there an easy way to pick a color that falls somewhere between two PMS colors?”
I said, “Sure. Draw two rectangles, and Fill one with your first PMS color and the other with the second PMS color. Select both rectangles with your Selection tool and, in your Tools palette, choose the Blend tool. Click on the Fill of your first rectangle and then Option-Click (Alt-Click on PC) on the second rectangle. In the Blend Options dialog that opens, choose ‘Specified Steps’ for Spacing and type in the number of ‘in between’ Steps you’d like to see and click OK. Then go to Object > Blend > Expand to access the actual vector and color Fills of the ‘in between’ objects. Select the rectangle with the best color and under the Options menu of the Swatches palette, choose New Swatch, name it, and click OK.” That was easy!
Tip provided by Jeff Witchel, Certified Adobe® Training Provider.
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.
