Mini Class: Level Up Your Colors in Adobe Illustrator, Unlock Color Editing Techniques

1. Welcome!: Hey, guys, welcome to level up your color game in Adobe Illustrator. My name is KylernParson. I am a graphic designer, illustrator and top teacher here on Skill Share. In this mini class, we'll learn some techniques in how to edit, refine, and ultimately level up your colors in Adobe Illustrator. Your project is to upgrade the colors of any of the illustrations used in the class, or you can apply what you've learned to your own designs. By the end of this class, you'll unlock new ways to edit colors in Adobe Illustrator. Let's get started. 2. Class 1: Color Editing Basics: There are a few ways to start to edit your colors. First, select your artwork and add all colors to your swatches panel. Check the box for global colors. This allows you the ability to update the individual colors in your swatches panel by double clicking the Swatch. Check on preview, and as you adjust the sliders, it will update all instances of that color in your illustration. Second, select your artwork and go to Edit Color recolor artwork, or you can find the color wheel at the top control bar. You can lock color harmony and adjust all the colors at once or unlock it for more precision. If you go to Advanced Options in the edit panel, use the sliders to better refine the hue, saturation, and brightness. If you have trouble selecting the colors in the color wheel, you can change the display settings to display color bars instead. Then you can pick the color easier and adjust using the sliders. Third, use the magic wand tool. This is Y on your keyboard to select the same colors and adjust using the color panel as necessary. You can double click the icon in the toolbar to select the same color stroke or fill, as well as you can increase the tolerance to get more similar colors selected or lower it to only select the exact colors you chose. This may be a quicker method than always having to go to select same fill color. This is just a starting point in how you can edit colors in Adobe illustry them. Let's check out more ways that we can use to refine our colors in the next class. 3. Class 2: Adjusting Color Balance: Let's say your illustration is a bit too yellow overall, or you want to play with the general feel. If you go to edit colors, adjust color balance, you can edit the illustration overall pushing and pulling the RGB or CMYK values, depending on the mode you're in. You can universally remove a bit of yellow from the design by pulling back the yellow slider. The sliders work by adjusting the amount of color in your illustration based on the initial values of the swatches used. So if your swatch only has 15% yellow, the slider can only remove up to 15%. Any lower, it does nothing. Vic versa, you can increase the amount by 85%. After that, there'll be no change because the total amount is equal to 100%. In this way, you can change the overall color values of your illustration at once. Just a quick understanding of the color modes. CMYK is a subtractive color mode. So to get things white, you have to remove all the colors from your illustration, meaning you have to pull back on all the inks. RGB is an additive color mode. So when you use this mode, you have to add colors to get white. Think of it as turning up the brightness of the light. The brighter the light, the brighter the white. If you want your illustration to be monochromatic, first, convert your colors to grayscale. Then go back and convert it to CMYK and add back the colors you want. This will give you an easy way to create a monopromatic illustration with various tones. 4. Class 3: Using Color Groups: Lastly, there are other ways to change the colors in your illustration. Let's say your design has lots of colors, but you want to change each of them to match a different aesthetic. Let's say you want to change to a brand's company colors. Instead of changing each color individually, you can use color groups. The first thing to do is to make a new color group with all the colors you want to replace in your illustration. I have them here. I select them, go to my swatches panel and add them as a new color group by clicking the file folder. Select Global, if you'd like. Then I select my artwork and go to Edit Colors Advanced Options. On the right hand side, you see the available color groups. You can select the one you want to replace, and it will change all your current colors to that of the ones in the color group. Then you can drag them to where you want them to be replaced. You can click on the swatches to choose if you want them to be the exact color or to be changed to a tint of the color. If you have enough colors in your color group, exact might be better since those are the colors you want. You just might have to adjust which colors are changed. If you have a minimal color palette, choosing tints might be useful since it will translate to a variation of the same color swatch. And you can quickly cycle through the swatches order here. 5. Class 4: Generative Recolor: A recently added feature to play around with is the AI generative recolor. Select your artwork and go to Edit Colors, toggle over the generative recolor option. From here, you can type in a prompt to change the colors of your illustration. Be as descriptive and creative as you want. Retro summer party, futuristic city with vibrant neon signs, stone age foliage. It's just fun to see what you can get. Just remember, this can be used as a starting point and you can edit and refine after. 6. Class 5: Checking Contrast: To check out if your illustration has enough contrast, create a black square and change its blending mode to color. You can put it on a separate layer to easily lock and unlock it as necessary. Select the square and move it over your illustration. Duplicate your illustration and the square so you can see a before and after. See if all the details you want are still present or if more contrast is required. Lock the black layer and start adjusting your colors using any of the previous methods. 7. Thank You! : For the class project, take an illustration, edit and refine the colors. See if you can make things pop or if things need to be more subtle. Change the feel, the colors overall, or just experiment and have fun. In the Project panel, post your before and after. I can't wait to see what you create. Don't forget to leave a review and follow me here to learn more in future classes. Wishing you all the best on your creative journey. I'll see you next time.