You can do this by changing the color of individual objects, or by changing the brightness of your entire drawing. Depending on the complexity of your drawing and the final coloration you intend to achieve, the choice is up to you. Here it is shown how the colors of selected objects can be darkened or lightened as a whole. The steps are for illustrator CC 2017 version.  

If you need to reduce brightness of all objects in the artwork at once please follow the instructions below.

illustrator adjust brightness

Step 1. Select your objects.

With CTRL/CMD + A short cut, you can select all objects on the workspace.

Step 2. Open the Recolor artwork dialog box.

The dialog box is accessed in two ways. if objects are selected, the recolor artwork icon appears on the control panel. click this icon.

illustrator’s new version has different workspaces. The recolor artwork icon is located in the “essential classic” workspace. You can change the workspace by clicking the upper right icon as shown below.

for the “essentials” workspace “recolor artwork” can also be found under the properties panel. once you click you will directly see the brightness slider.

Step 3. Click the Edit tab in the dialog box

“essential classic” workspace users should follow the steps below.

Now you should see recolor artwork panel like this:

Step 4. Adjust the brightness using the slider

The brightness slider placed just below the color wheel. Click preview (Recolor Art) to see the immediate result.

Thank you.

The post How to adjust the brightness of vector drawings in illustrator appeared first on Illustrator Tutorials.

If you would like to extract colors from an image and use them in your artwork, you can do one of the following options:

1. Extract colors using Object mosaic
2. Extract colors using image trace

Both methods create a color group in the swatches panel

How to get a color from an image in illustrator

Method 1: To copy an image color in illustrator please follow the instructions here. you can use below image as a sample image

From the file menu select Place.

• Choose your image file and make sure “link” option is not selected. This will embed your image to AI file.

Go to Object menu and select Create object mosaic

Type 5 for the width and High dimensions

You should have a similar vector like this:

Open your swatches panel.

• if you can not find your swatches panel you can find it by going window>swatches menu.
• Once you opened your panel go to the upper right corner of the panel and click it. Then choose “new color group“. Now you should see your colors in the swatches panel as a new group.

How to extract colors from an image

Method 2:

Place your image to the artboard.

• Choose your image file and make sure “Link” option is not selected. This will embed your image to AI file.

Convert your image to vector

• if not selected. select your image first
• Use image trace command.
• little down arrow near Image Trace button will pop up standard trace options. select 16 color.

• Once your image is converted to vector, expand it.

• As in the first method open your swatches panel
• Create a new color group from the panel options.

I hope this helps you. Thank you for being here.

Bye.

The post How to extract colors from an image in illustrator appeared first on Illustrator Tutorials.