Alright, we're managing to get some pretty radical color schemes going here.
Let's say you want to reign things in and you
want to limit your choices to an existing Color Library.
For example, I'll switch back over to the Swatches panel, and I'll
click on the Library icon in the bottom left corner of that panel.
Choose Nature and then choose Stone and Brick.
And we'll see a collection of color groups,
all of which provide us with more muted options.
Now,
I could go ahead and select one of those color groups if
I wanted to, but instead I'm just going to close this free floating panel.
And I'm going to switch back over to the Color Guide panel.
And notice the word None right here.
That indicates that we have no constraints whatsoever.
If you want to apply a constraint, then you click on this little Limit icon.
And that will once again offer a list
of the libraries that ship along with Illustrator.
Choose Nature and then choose that same option.
Stone and Brick,
and notice that we're limited to a much smaller range of colors.
Now, if you want to modify that range, then you'd click on the
Edit Colors button, in order to bring up the Edit Colors dialogue box.
And notice that Stone and Brick is still
active and now you can drag your colors around.
Inside of the lab wheel, all be it with these constraints.
Now, don't think just because you drag a color over a particular range
of color here that that's the exact color you're going to get.
Bear in mind that we're just seeing human saturation.
We're not seeing brightness.
If you want to modify the brightness, you click in the Brightness icon below
the color wheel like so and then you can adjust the brightness values.
As you see me doing here and you
can select whatever colors you want to work with.
And then if you want to, once again modify
saturation, you'd switch back to the Saturation icon.
Now, if ever you want to remove the limit, then all you need
to do is click on this little icon below Stone and Brick.
And choose none, and then you will no longer have any constraints.
But I do want the constraints, so I'll switch
back to Nature and then Stone and Brick once again.
And I'll click the OK button.
I want you to notice, nothing is italicized.
Here inside the Color Groups list.
But if I click OK, Illustrator will
still ask me, hey do you want to save your changes to the Swatch group?
Either a new group called Color Group or if you've been working along
with me, it may ask you if you want to update nine color pentagram.
What I recommend you do is click the Cancel
button because obviously you don't want to lose your work.
But you probably don't want to create a new color group called Color Group.
And I'll just name this guy, Stone and Brick.
And by the way, we're limited to all
of the colors inside of the various groups inside
that Stone and Brick library.
But I'll go ahead and name my new group, Stone & brick, like so,
click on the little group icons in order to make it, and I'll click OK.
And now, there's a couple of different ways you can apply these colors.
One is to return to the Swatches panels.
Scroll down a list or just give yourself more room by
dragging the horizontal bar and apply your colors directly from these Swatches.
So, I might click on this background rectangle over
here in the left hand art board, and I'll
change it to the shade of redish brown, let's say.
And then, I'll click on one of the yellowish shapes in
order to select all them and select this swatch right there.
And then I'll click on this purplish leaf to select all
the purple shapes and I'll change them to this lower saturation brown.
In order to create this more muted background effect.
That isn't competing quite as much for my attention,
so I still have the focus on the t-shirt design.
The other way to work.
I'll go ahead and switch over to the second art board.
Is to return to the Color Guide panel.
And that way, you can take advantage of shades and tints and so forth.
I might switch back to Show Vivid Muted and see what I have available to me.
And I'll select that background rectangle and I'll
change it to the shade of brown right here.
So you can see already.
I'm getting very different results. I'll also like this yellow shape.
Not seeing anything I want in this list so, let's
try a warm cool and see if there's anything different there.
Not really.
Let's try out tints and shades then and
go with this lightest shade of brown right there.
And then I'll select this pink leaf in order to make it active.
And I'll change it to this sort of lightish, reddish color.
In order to achieve this effect.
Although that's not giving me enough contrast.
So, I'll try this color right there.
And every time you do this, by the way. You're going to get different results.
Which is why I'm always sort of struggling to
figure out exactly which colors I'm going to apply.
And you know, I want these shapes right there to be
a little darker so I'll go with this color right there.
That looks pretty good to me.
But in any event if I press Shift tab in order to hide those right
side panels, so that we can see both of the art boards at the same time.
You can see that even though we're working inside of the
confines of the exact same Color Library, Stone and Brick.
We're achieving very different effects, depending on whether
we apply the colors directly from the Swatches
panel over here on the left, or from the Color Guide panel, over here on the right.
And that's how you can strain a harmony rule as well as your
ability to select and apply colors to
an existing Color Library here inside Illustrator.