Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Color groups and the Color Guide
The default document profiles that ship with Illustrator include several swatches and
one or two color groups to start using in your document. To create and save your own
groups of colors, select multiple colors from the Swatches or the Color Guide panels,
or select the objects in your artwork that contain the colors you want and click the
New Color Group icon in the Swatches panel.
The New Color Group icon (top) makes it possible to organize your
Swatches panel creating sets manually or
from selected objects (shown selected at top
and saved as a group at bottom); you also
specify the name for the group
The Color Guide panel helps you mix and match colors according to various color
schemes. At the upper left of the Color Guide panel is the “base color” swatch. You
can choose a base color by clicking on a color in the Color Guide, Color, or Swatches
panel. To the right of the base color swatch, you can choose a harmony rule that will
automatically select colors that go with your base color, based on scientific color
theory. Or, in the Swatches panel, click on the Color Group icon in a color group to
load that group in the Color Guide panel. You can then preview variations of those
colors by choosing to display them (using the Color Guide's panel menu) according to
value, temperature, or saturation. Drag a selected swatch (or swatches) to the
Swatches panel to save it, or click on the “Save color group to Swatch panel” icon.
Clicking on the “New swatch group” icon in the Swatches panel will also save your
