Illustrator

Reduce colors in your artwork

Reducing colors for output, converting colors to grayscale, or limiting colors to a color library is often necessary when you create artwork intended for multiple types of output media. You can easily reduce the number of colors in your artwork using the Live Color dialog box. You can choose whether to use a preset for reducing colors, for example, you can choose Grayscale Art to quickly convert your selected artwork to grayscale.

Reducing selected artwork to two colors

Quickly reduce colors using a preset

Reducing your colors by using a preset is a quick and easy way to limit your artwork to a specific number of colors or a swatch library.

  1. Select the artwork you want to reduce.
  2. Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor With Preset, and choose a preset option.
  3. Do one of the following:

    • If you want to limit colors to a swatch library, click the library button , select the library you want, and then click OK.

    • If you don’t want to limit colors to a swatch library, click OK.

    The Live Color dialog box opens. The New column displays the number of colors you chose as your preset, plus black. The new colors are taken from your original artwork.

  4. Assign your original colors to the new colors as desired.
  5. Make sure Recolor Art is selected, and click OK.

Reduce colors using custom options

  1. Select the artwork you want to recolor.
  2. Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Recolor Artwork.

    The Live Color dialog box opens. The New column displays all the colors from your selected artwork.

  3. To use different colors, select or create a new color group.
  4. Choose the number of colors you want to reduce down to from the Colors menu.
  5. Click the Color Reduction Options button , specify any of the following options, and click OK:
    Preset
    Specifies a preset color job, including the number of colors used and optimal settings for that job. If you select a preset and then change any of the other options, the preset changes to Custom.

    Colors
    Specifies the number of new colors that the current colors are reduced to.

    Limit To Library
    Specifies a swatch library from which all new colors are derived.

    Sort
    Determines how the original colors are sorted in the Current Colors column.

    Colorize Method
    Specifies the types of variations allowed for the new colors.

    • Exact exactly replaces each current color with the specified new color.

    • Scale Tints (default option) replaces the darkest current color in the row with the specified new color. Other current colors in the row are replaced with a proportionally lighter tint.

    • Preserve Tints is the same as Scale Tints for non-global colors. For spot or global colors, it applies the current color’s tint to the new color. Use Preserve Tints when all the current colors in the row are tints of the same or similar global color. For best results when using Preserve Tints, also select Combine Tints.

    • Tints And Shades replaces the current color with the average lightness and darkness with the specified new color. Current colors that are lighter than the average are replaced with a proportionally lighter tint of the new color. Current colors that are darker than the average are replaced by adding black to the new color.

    • Hue Shift sets the most typical color in the Current Colors row as a key color and exactly replaces the key color with the new color. The other current colors are replaced by colors that differ from the new color in brightness, saturation, and hue by the same amounts that the current color differs from the key color.

    Combine Tints
    Sorts all tints of the same global color into the same Current Colors row, even if colors are not being reduced. Use this option only when the selected art contains global or spot colors applied at tints less than 100%. For best results, use in combination with the Preserve Tints colorization method.
    Note: Even when Combine Tints is not selected, color reduction combines tints of the same global color before it combines different non-global colors.

    Preserve
    Determines whether white, black, or gray is preserved in the final reduction. If a color is preserved, it appears in the Current Colors column as an excluded row.

  6. Assign current colors to the new colors as desired.
  7. Make sure Recolor Art is selected, and click OK.