Does this really work?

[aicity_323895367xtw]

Hello there, folks,

I have been told that if I drag and drop any image (jpeg or png) that is 100% in grayscale inside Illustrator you can quickly recolor it just by clicking on your any color of your Swatches. I just tried to do that and it did not work. Maybe I misunderstood it, or there are more steps that I missed?

Thanks in advance.

[Monika Gause]

With A TIF this is possible.

[Ton Frederiks]

If it contains transparency it cannot be colored.

[Ton Frederiks]

It should work with greyscale jpeg, tiff, psd and bitmaps.

[aicity_323895367xtw]

in that case why do you think it doesn't work? I even tried to trace the image and it still does not recolor. 

I tried with a high contrast image, which had only full black and full white and was a jpeg.

[Ton Frederiks]

Can you share an image that does not work for you?

[Monika Gause]

I tried JPEG, and it doesn't work.

[Ton Frederiks]

Works for me, can you share that jpeg?

[Monika Gause]

I figured it out - I did save it in RGB accidentally. I used Save for Web out of habit, which of course converted the color space. 

[Ton Frederiks]

I see, curious to find out why it does not work for @aicity_323895367xtw 

[aicity_323895367xtw]

I have tried with this jpeg photo in black and white. As you can see, even the Edit Colors area don't have any options available to be applied.

[Ton Frederiks]

If the image is linked, there are not many edit options.

But linked files can also be colored.

Can you share that file or a part of it?

[Lut @ HOTEL KONFETTI]

Changing the (monotone) color of a grayscale JPEG should work, also with recolor with Preset ...

Is your JPEG a real grayscale image, or is it just Black & White (but in RGB/CMYK modus)?

[Lut @ HOTEL KONFETTI]

This also works in InDesign, by the way. 

[Anubhav M]

Hello @aicity_323895367xtw,

Thanks for reaching out. Would you mind sharing some more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator, public links to sample files after uploading them to Dropbox/Google Drive/etc., and a screen recording of your workflow and the problem (https://adobe.ly/3Uzt5Vo), as suggested by Ton, so we can investigate this further?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Anubhav