Picking the Perfect Color

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.

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