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NinaBR
NinaBR
Inspiring
March 17, 2023
Answered

How to get color options -- all I have is grayscale

  • March 17, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 2467 views

Hello. Brand-new Illustrator user here. I just took two days of beginner Illustrator courses and have run into a dozen issues already of things that weren't covered in the class. Apologies for the basic questions, I'm only asking questions I couldn't find answers to elsewhere (probably because I'm not sure how to phrase them for the search).

 

I have an image that I pulled in as a PDF. It's a black-and-white image. I want to add colors, so I went to the Color panel to select something. But all I have are grayscale options. If I click the color menu, it says "Grayscale," so I changed the selection to CMYK. I also tried RGB. But nothing changes, and it just goes back to Grayscale.

 

How do I make it so my color menu shows colors? Thank you.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Monika Gause

Thank you. I tried following those instructions, but the "New Swatch" button is inactive.


It should get active when you click on the stroke (at the moment the fill is focused and it's set to None)

2 replies

Met1
Met1
Legend
March 17, 2023

Easiest solution is to go to File→New, choose a PRINT template, you can modify the height and width to what you want before you hit Create.

Go to your greyscale doc, select all, copy, go to your new doc, paste.

You'll have all the default colors that come with Illy in your new doc.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 17, 2023

You could try whether this soves it: Help! My Image is Grey and Doesn't Take Color 

NinaBR
NinaBRAuthor
Inspiring
March 17, 2023

Thanks. I think I have a much more basic option. My only color swatches are black, white, and no color. I suspect this is less of a bug and more of an issue of my own ignorance. How do I get the other color swatches to show up? This was never an issue in the course I just took -- the colors were all there by default. 

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 17, 2023

You opened a PDF file. In the course you probably only created new files and those are based on templates that have all the swatches. You can take the swatches panel and just create new swatches. https://helpx.adobe.com/in/illustrator/how-to/color-basics.html 

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