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Greyscale tiff won't colorize placed in Illustrator

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
March 25, 2011
12 replies
55209 views

I was working with a scan today, Greyscale and I was able to place it into an Illustrator file then colorize it without issue. When I went into the Photoshop file and duplicated the original locked scanned layer and saved out the tiff would not colorize in Illustrator. Had to go back to the raw scan and rework the file without duplicating the original locked layer. This took extra time and was a bit troubling. Does anyone know why the greyscale tiff with duplicated layer won't colorize in Illustrator? Any insight to this would be greatly appreciated. Oh one final detail, the colorization worked with spot colors but not CMYK builds. I forgot to mention that.

Correct answer wckdtall

I found another fix for this issue, rather than being limited to Pantone Swatches. I'm in CC 2015, and while adding a background and shutting off visibility did not work, converting any color to a spot color in the palette does work. If you need to change the color, you have to edit it in the swatch itself otherwise the color converts back to your process, and your image will appear grayscale.

Z

zecko

Participant

Don't know if anyone was ever able to get to the right result, but I'll add my 2 cents. So I been fighting with this thing all morning and my TIFF's that were created in PS would not change color fro anything when I drag or opened in AI. but I did notice a random jpeg I'd open in PS, converted it to grayscale and saved as a TIFF was able to be recolored in AI. So I did just that with my art. The TIFF that I needed to use I saved as a JPEG, reopened it in PS and converted it to grayscale and saved as a TIFF. AND BAM! Finally! I was able to play with the colors in AI. It's an annoying extra step, but it did work. I hope you can find this helpful.

1: Save the art as a jepg in PS

2: Reopen in PS and convert to greyscale

3: Save as TIFF.

4: Enjoy in AI with some colors. =)

Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

Please use .psd format, and avoid .tif . This is an old post and you can now colorize .psd. Just has to be a spot color and grayscale .psd.

PSD is much more reliable, efficient & technically sound that TIF.

wckdtall

Inspiring

Any raster image embedded or linked can be colored using a grayscale color mode in Illustrator. The spot color requirement only applies to images that have transparency, but is definitely the way to go with complex textures. While PSDs are great, Tifs are still a viable format, as they support photoshop features and are widely compatible with more programs than the Adobe suite. Tifs also offer an unmatched level of compression than PSDs.

wckdtallCorrect answer

Inspiring

I found another fix for this issue, rather than being limited to Pantone Swatches. I'm in CC 2015, and while adding a background and shutting off visibility did not work, converting any color to a spot color in the palette does work. If you need to change the color, you have to edit it in the swatch itself otherwise the color converts back to your process, and your image will appear grayscale.

C

CROSS5E57

Participant

WORKED!!! Long live to you!

J

josephm88498680

Participant

Just had the same in InDesign, after saving a TIFF from a PSD with a transparent background. (I've not read through all the responses, so sorry if this has already been suggested but...) It seems you can't colour up a TIFF if it has transparency, so when saving the TIFF un tick 'add transparency' and that's worked for me.

BrianMackin

Participant

Same issue as above in InDesign.

All the sudden out of nowhere I can't color bitmap or greyscale TIFFs with transparent backgrounds.

I've had serious frustrations with issues in Illustrator over the last 5 months, that seems to have gotten addressed finally and now this.

Any help here is appreciated.

Definitely don't have time for this nonsense.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

So you have this issue in InDesign?

Then you might want to post in the InDesign forum.

R

roadside_trash99

Participant

FIXED FIXED...Just happened to a co-worker of mine using CC (works in CS6 too)... Here is what we did to fix it. Open the file in photoshop, click the bottom/last layer in your layer pallet. Next from the menu bar: Layer>New>background from layer. Save. Now in illustrator you can color the file. If you've already tried colorizing, the color should now display when you switch back to illustrator. NOTE: it will flatten that last layer, if that's not ok for you then add a blank layer at the bottom, make it a background layer as described above and "turn off" the layer by clicking the eyeball next to it. Save and you're done. Hope this helps someone.

(tested with layered tiffs and psd)

leroyl35447854

Participant

I tried this and it did not work most of the times.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You could start by showing your artwork.

Also: is it really greyscale? Check the info in the Links panel.

I

inkling405

Participant

I know it's been a long time since there was a post on this but I've ran into this issue before and just ran into it again and forgot how I did it. I found out what my problem was and it was the same problem I ran into before as well. On the gradient tab, make you you have FILL selected and not OUTLINE. This will cause you not to be able to colorize your TIFF file!

L

Lisakowa

Participant

I eventually managed to do it! Even though adobe says it can't be done. As long as its a grayscale tiff and its flattened not layered. It works!!

A

Anonymous

Place the flattened grayscale tiff in Illustrator. Select it with the Direct Selection tool - click on the color palette for None. Then click the spot color (or other color swatch) you want.

It works for me - though I rarely have to color tifs in Illustrator this way. THis ugly business card came in designed in 2 spot colors. I had to change the cpot color for the blue from one PMS to the other.

I

I_Sailer-nLjX38

Participating Frequently

A flattened image resolves the issue of colorizing, but I thought the OP was having trouble with colorizing while preserving tranaparency.

medicineheads_no

Participating Frequently

hmmm - just my suggestion - place any file use any color and use the tranparency to your liking

I

I_Sailer-nLjX38

Participating Frequently

I concur, Illustrator will only let me colorize a linked grayscale image if the file has a background layer. This would prevent being able to apply color to an image that has a transparent component to it from within Illustrator, you would instead have to do this though photoshop.

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daveg_home

Participant

I don't know that having a background layer is the culprit here because I have a greyscale psd placed into an Illustrator file and colorized with a PMS (or any other color of my choosing). When opening the PSD file, it's greyscale, with transparency. Placed into Illustrator, it says embedded 'transparent greyscale'. The problem is that when I try to duplicate this, I can't - so I have no idea why it's working on these files but not others. Very frustrating.

The issue with this would be if the graphic has white areas (especially edges or strokes of white) - as soon as you flatten in PS, you lose those edges, so that wasn't working for me.

I

I_Sailer-nLjX38

Participating Frequently

I found this in Illustrator's help on how to colorize 1 bit or grayscale images.

Select the bitmap object.
Make sure the Fill button in the Tools panel or Color panel is selected.
Use the Color panel to color the image with black, white, a process color, or a spot color.
Note: If a grayscale image contains an alpha channel, you cannot colorize the image with a process color. Select a spot color instead.

So if your grayscale image has transparency (i.e. an alpha channel) you can only colorize it with a spot color inside Illustrator. If you need to colorize with process it sounds like you will need to do that image into Photoshop.