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A
Anonymous
December 25, 2014
Question

How to desaturate (or color edit) an IMAGE?

  • December 25, 2014
  • 8 replies
  • 63104 views

I have an image imported to Illustrator. Some of JPG files. Now I want to add to my image desaturation 100%.
Scale of gray, you know what I mean.

But I didn't see an option to edit that image.
When I click this: http://prntscr.com/5kpc43 what means "Edit original", my image opens in... Microsoft Paint!

There must be any option to do that in Illustrator. I can't do this in Photoshop because I would have to do all things from the beginning (scale, rotation, position etc).

Please, help

8 replies

K
Keith353049316iyl
Participant
October 4, 2024

FWIW: create a black rectangle; position it over the image; set blend mode to 'color'

M
Ming Hsiung
Participant
September 19, 2019

select image, go tto Effect>Rasterize  set Color Mode to Greyscale

 

    D
    dav.dec
    Participant
    June 15, 2016

    I don't know regarding previous versions of Illustrator, but in CC2015 a raster image can be set to grayscale if it is EMBEDDED (LINKED images will not work). For an embedded image, edit color-> grayscale will work. To embed a linked image, select the image and click on embed button on top toolbar.

      dario.
      dario.
      Known Participant
      May 3, 2018

      "Raster image" set to gray will do for linked images if you pick it up from the Effects menu.

      Mike_Gondek10189183
      Community Expert
      Mike_Gondek10189183Community Expert
      Community Expert
      December 26, 2014

      First I would fix your edit original:

      Mac Finder - Command I on any files of the type and change default program for that file type then click change all

      Window - Right click properties  on any file of the type and change default program for that file type then then click change all

      You can then make the change in photoshop for better control. If you wish to do this in illustrator instead, draw a aware adn fill with a neutral color, adn set blending mode to saturation.

      Wesołych Świąt

      A
      Anonymous
      December 27, 2014

      Thanks to everyone for trying to help me.

      1. My pictures are opened by graphics explorers, like IrfanView or standard Microsoft Browser. So I can't do that. Because I don't want after that opening my Image files in Photoshop, no. I want to just edit it one time. I think Illustrator should open my image in Photoshop automatically when I select my image in Illustrator and click "edit image", don't you think?

      2. I work mostly on Corel Draw. It'a also vector software but there we can change color of rasterized images.

      3. Hey, there must be a way to do that in Illustrator. C'mon, this is not a very heavy, complicated thing to do with rasterized image. I want only to DESATURATE it, that's all. I don't beliewe that default Illustrator can't do that simple thing.

      4. Color editing isn't work:

      5. The most important. I know that I can do it all over again but I place my object in "create clipping mask". And put this very carefully etc. So I want just edit a color (desaturate a little bit). Instead I would have to delete this, desaturate in Photoshop, paste this in Illustrator, then create a clipping mask again etc. And after that I think "hmmm, maybe desaturation is a little to much, let's see how it looks like next time" and I will have to do this all over again! No way, there must be option to do this SIMPLE action in Illustrator without aby plugins.

      Mike_Gondek10189183
      Community Expert
      Mike_Gondek10189183Community Expert
      Community Expert
      December 27, 2014

      1) Illustrator swill edit your image in Photoshop after you click edit original, you just ned to follow mr previous post and set hat file format to open in Photoshop.

      2) Effect > Photoshop Effects will work on raftered images similar to Corel. Unfortunatley they do not have hue/saturation as everyone does that in photoshop

      3) You can desaturate in Illustrator as I mentioned in my previous post. You would have to draw a grey colored square and set a blending mode in transparency.

      4) Edit color will not work on rastered images, not sure why Larry suggested that

      5)  You really should do your image editing in Photoshop, you will get a better quality mask, and not have for example the white fringe pixels on top of the hair in your screenshot. Ilustrator is a vector based program and since Photoshop displays bitmapped images more accurately, you will want to do pixel masks in photoshop

        Monika Gause
        Community Expert
        Monika GauseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        December 26, 2014

        Try the plugin Phantasm.

        Larry G. Schneider
        Community Expert
        Larry G. SchneiderCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        December 26, 2014

        Have you tried Edit>Edit Colors>Convert to Grayscale?

          JETalmage
          JETalmage
          Inspiring
          December 25, 2014

          Illustrator is not a raster imaging program. Other than effects and re-rasterization, It does not provide tools for directly editing raster images as do some other vector-based drawing programs.

          JET

          Jacob Bugge
          Community Expert
          Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          December 25, 2014

          AIU,

          You can do some of the work with the help of Illy, and then turn to Photoshop.

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