Smart/Adaptive Cross-Colorspace Swatches
It's industry standard to define brand colors in more than one colorspace. Usually you have at least PMS, CMYK and RGB definitions of each brand color you're deploying.
I'd love it if Illustrator (or the whole CC suite, as a matter of fact) would help this routine, like this:
Let's have a new swatch type: Cross-Colorspace Swatch. This special swatch type would enable the designer to define variations of the color in any/all color spaces, inside that one swatch definition.
Instead of defining say three different swatches, you would define one, saying: "This is Brand color 1. In cmyk colorspace it's C50M0..., in rgb colorspace it's R0G120.., it's Pantone code is PMS 20..."
This way, when you change your document's color space or paste into a document in another colorspace, for example, the Cross-Colorspace Swatch would automatically check if it has a definition ready for the target space, and override whatever default conversion rules with that definition.
For situations where it's not obvious which definition to use (for example whether you want to use the PMS or CMYK definition when your document is in CMYK mode) you would be able to force the swatch to use the version you want (say, PMS).
Further uses would include automations for creating captioned samples of the color in each colorspace, to help in creating brand books and such, for example.
Anonymous
shared this idea
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If you have converted a document from RGB to CMYK or vise versa, there is a way to modify the black Ai assigns when you hit D — since it is bound to the [Default Graphic Style] in Graphic Styles panel.
1. Create a rectangle
2. Hit D
3. Change the stroke of the stroke for this rectangle to the proper black you need (puro RGB 0-0-0 or CMYK 0-0-0-100, depending on your goal)
4. Open Graphics Styles panel
5. Drag this rectangle with Opt/Alt held over the [Default Graphic Style] item (usually it’s the very first one)
Done, your default black is now the one you defined.
You’d still have to modify the swatch.
Definitely Illustrator could have automated it and give users a choice to change these when they change the color mode of the document... but at least we can control it. -
Chase Hasper
commented
You make a good point Egor. Considering that the color ends up relying on the printers, it could be difficult.
Although, it could rely on the document’s color mode? Such as, if the document is in CMYK the CMYK values are what would be printed and if it’s in RGB, the RGB values are what would be printed. Illustrator could output the right values for the swatch based on the document. -
Basically you want swatches that ignore profiling. This can be very tough to deal with for those who print, especially if done wrong. But I like the idea.
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Emile
commented
I just had this idea for myself, and glad to see other people feel the same. It would be great if it works across libraries too.
I'd at least like to assign RGB and CMYK values to 1 swatch so the switch between is optimised to my selection. No one wants small fractions of colour in their cmyk.
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Stéphane Baril
commented
For the record, I'm not a dev or a product manager (so no power on this) but I'm trying to push this idea since few years.
So I'd like more votes to help promoting this idea :) -
Chase Hasper
commented
Smart colors would allow a user to apply different numerical values to a color within their Swatches, and lock them across color profiles. This would differ from the current standards by allowing users to preselect the different values for each color profile and lock them in, ensuring better consistency throughout materials.
For example, if the document is in CMYK, the color will adapt the the CMYK values applied and locked to the color. When dragged into a new project set up in RGB, the color would adapt to the assigned RBG values. This would also allow the opportunity to link a Pantone swatch with a selected CMYK value, rather than using default values for the color chosen.
