Edit colors in the Edit Color dialog box

Editing colors in the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box is a convenient way to globally adjust the colors in selected artwork. It is especially useful when global colors weren't originally used in the artwork's creation. You can edit colors and color groups in the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box and apply your edits to selected artwork, or save the edited colors for later use.

When editing colors, you use the smooth color wheel, the segmented color wheel, or the color bars.

Editing colors by moving color markers on the smooth color wheel

Smooth color wheel: Displays hue, saturation, and brightness in a smooth continuous circle. Each color in the current color group is drawn on the wheel inside a circle. This wheel lets you choose from numerous colors with great precision, but it can be hard to see individual colors because every pixel is a different color.
Segmented color wheel: Displays colors as a set of segmented color patches. This wheel makes it easy to see individual colors, but doesn’t provide as many colors to choose from as the continuous wheel.
Color bars: Displays only colors from the color group. They appear as solid bars of color that you can select and edit individually. You can reorganize colors in this display by dragging and dropping color bars to the left or right. You can right-click a color and choose to remove it, set it as the base color, change its shade, or change it using the Color Picker.

For a video on creating, editing, and experimenting with color groups, see www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4019_ai.

A.: Base color as it appears in Harmony Rules menu
B.: Base color as it appears in color wheel
C.: Color display options
D.: Color of selected color marker or color bar
E.: Show saturation and hue on Wheel
F.: Add and subtract color marker tools
G.: Unlink harmony colors

Save changes to a color group

Before you start editing your color groups, make sure that you know how to save your changes correctly so you don’t inadvertently overwrite your favorite color group! You have two options when saving your changes: you can overwrite the original color group with the edited color group, or you can create a new color group with the changes, leaving the original intact.

Do either of the following:

To keep your original color group unchanged and save the changes as a new color group, click New Color Group at the top of the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box.
To save the changes to your original color group (thus overwriting the original color group), click Save Changes To Color Group .

Edit a color group using a color wheel

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, select the desired color group from the Color Groups storage area, if necessary.
If you have selected an object on the artboard, click Recolor Art to preview the colors on the artwork. If you don’t want to recolor the artwork, deselect Recolor Art before closing the dialog box, or click Cancel to close it.
Note: To edit the colors of the selected artwork, click Get Colors From Selected Art .
To confine colors to a swatch library, click the Limits The Color Group To Colors In A Swatch Library button and choose a library from the list.
To change the base color to a different color in the current group, right-click the color in a color wheel or color bars and choose Set As Base Color. Or click a color in the Active Colors box, and then click Set Current Color As Base Color to the left of the Active Colors box.
Drag a marker on the wheel to change its color. If the harmony is linked, all the colors move according to the rule as you drag. If the harmony is unlinked, only the marker that you drag moves.
While editing, you can do any of the following:
- To change hue, move the marker around the wheel. To change saturation or brightness, move it inward and outward on the wheel.
- To add a color, right-click in the color wheel where you want to add the color and choose Add New Color.
- To remove a color, right-click on the color marker (or the line of the marker) in the color wheel and choose Remove Color.
- To change a color using the Color Picker, right-click the color and choose Color Picker
- To constrain the marker to move in only one direction, hold down the shift key as you drag.
- To see hue and saturation instead of hue and brightness on the wheel, click the Show Saturation And Hue On The Wheel button , directly below the wheel to toggle between the two views.
- To change the color values manually, click the color marker or click the color in the Active Colors box. Edit the color values using the sliders or color value text boxes under the color wheel.
- To change the saturation and brightness of a color on the wheel, right-click a color marker, and choose Select Shade; then click the desired color in the box that appears.
Save your changes by clicking New Color Group , which keeps your original color group unchanged and saves the changes as a new color group. Or click Save Changes To Color Group to overwrite your original color group with the changes.

Note: To ensure that the colors are in gamut or web safe, select each color marker and click the Out Of Gamut

or Out Of Web

buttons as necessary.

Reorder colors in a color group

Do one of the following:

In the Active Colors menu, drag a color left or right.
In Color Bars view, drag a color bar left or right.

Edit an individual color in a color group

When you use a harmony rule to create a color group, the colors are linked by default. When a color group is linked, editing one color changes the other colors according to the harmony rule. To edit one color without changing the others, unlink the color markers from the harmony rule.

View full size graphic

A.: Color wheel view of linked colors
B.: Color wheel view of unlinked colors
C.: Color bars view of linked colors
D.: Color bars view of unlinked colors
E.: Colors linked, click to unlink
F.: Colors unlinked, click to relink

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, select the color group you want to edit and click Edit.
Click the Unlink Harmony Colors icon .
Do one of the following in either the color wheel or color bar view:
- Drag the color marker you want to edit to set a new color.
- Click the color bar or color marker you want to change and manually edit the color values, or double-click (or right-click) the color bar and choose a new color in the Color Picker.
- Double-click (or right-click) the color bar or marker and choose a new color in the Color Picker.
- Right-click a color marker or color bar and pick a new shade.
To relink the colors so that the markers move again according to the newly defined harmony rule, click the button again.

Edit colors in a color group using the Color Picker

You can use the Color Picker to change colors in a color group.

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, do one of the following:
- Double-click a wheel marker or right-click a wheel marker and choose Color Picker.
- Double-click a color bar.
- Click the color swatch to the left of the color sliders.
Save the edits by doing one of the following:
- To save the edited colors as a new group, type a new name in the name box at the top of the dialog box, and then click New Color Group .
- To save the edits to the original color group, click Save Changes To Color Group .

Randomly change color order or saturation and brightness

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, you can explore random variations of the current color group by using the Randomly Assign Brightness And Saturation button and the Randomly Change Color Order button.

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, select a color group.
Click Edit, and then click Display Color Bars; or click Assign.
Do either of the following:
- To randomly change the brightness and saturation of the current color group while retaining the hues, click Randomly Change Color Order .
- To shuffle the order of the current color group, click Randomize Saturation And Brightness . Use this button when recoloring artwork to quickly explore the different ways artwork can be recolored with the current color group.

Globally edit saturation, brightness, temperature, or luminosity

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, click Edit.
Click the Color Mode button , and choose Global Adjust.
Change the values for Saturation, Brightness, Temperature, and Luminosity.
Note: If you’ve limited the colors to a swatch library, any adjustments you make are limited to the library colors.

Add or remove colors in a color group

In the Edit Colors/Recolor Artwork dialog box, click Edit.
Do either of the following:
- To add a color to the color group, right-click in the color wheel where you want to add the color and choose Add New Color. If you click the line of an existing color marker, the new marker moves with that marker.
- To remove a color, right-click the color marker or color bar and choose Remove Color. You cannot remove the base color marker.
  
  Note: In the color wheel, you can also use the Add Color Tool button or the Remove Color Tool button , and then click in the color wheel on the color you want to add or remove.
- To remove a color from a color group in the Color Groups list, expand the color group, right-click the color swatch you want to remove, and choose Remove Color.