How to automaticly group paths by color while tracing an image?

[Guest]

So I'm tracing an image in CS5 using 6 colours. Naturally the result is a whole bunch of paths randomly layered onto each other, but can these paths be grouped by colors automaticly after the trace? Like 6 groups of paths separated by each color, you know what I mean? Or maybe there's a function to select all the objects of the same one color?

[Debbie Keller]

With the color selected choose Select > Same > Fill Color

[Doug A Roberts · Accepted solution]

under the Select menu > Same > Fill colour

expand and ungroup your trace first of course.

[Guest]

Thanks! That helps a lot. But still I wonder if it's possible to make him do it automaticly as a tracing result or it's not an option for Ai whatsoever?

[Bill Silbert]

There is no such option. As I said above the colors are too uneven to even try to do that.

[Guest]

Not sure if there are any variations if it's a simple 6 colour trace. It's literally only 6. Of course if it's a high fidelity trace with 100 colors for example, there would be a lot of variations, but all these 100 tones should be possible to separate into 100 groups. Why not? The point is, it would be a pain in the ai to select and choose same fill color for all the 100 colors one by one.

[Doug A Roberts]

what do you mean bill? if you trace with six colours, they'll be the same six colours.

[Bill Silbert]

I’m understanding the question to be that a raster image is being traced. Even if the image was specifically created in Photoshop with flat areas of color (although why something like that would not have been created in Illustrator in the first place puzzles me) then I am just saying that it’s always been my experience that if you check these colors with the eyedropper in Photoshop then you will almost always see some variation in their breakdowns as you move the eyedropper over what looks to the eye like the same color. Given that Image Trace in Illustrator tends to break down colors of a raster image to make the final look like a “paint-by-numbers” set with many different shapes representing what had previously looked like solid colors I am just recommending caution in regard to expectation.

[Guest]

Well, yeah. But any raster image has a limited number of colors it consists of. And any number of colors technically should be possible to separate into groups. It's not impossible, just not intended by the coders apparently.

[Bill Silbert]

Right. It's not an exact science is all I'm saying.

[Guest]

It should be actually but no software is perfect I guess.

[Doug A Roberts]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Bill+Silbert  wrote

I’m understanding the question to be that a raster image is being traced. Even if the image was specifically created in Photoshop with flat areas of color (although why something like that would not have been created in Illustrator in the first place puzzles me) then I am just saying that it’s always been my experience that if you check these colors with the eyedropper in Photoshop then you will almost always see some variation in their breakdowns as you move the eyedropper over what looks to the eye like the same color. Given that Image Trace in Illustrator tends to break down colors of a raster image to make the final look like a “paint-by-numbers” set with many different shapes representing what had previously looked like solid colors I am just recommending caution in regard to expectation.

whatever variations were originally in the raster image, if you perform an image trace in illustrator with a limited set of colours, you'll end up with those colours. no variations.

[Bill Silbert]

I still think that with image trace it is not an exact science. Especially without having seen the original image.

[Doug A Roberts]

you're saying that if you perform a, say, four-colour trace, there's a chance you'd end up with more than four colours?

because that's provably untrue. clear all the swatches from a document. trace something with four colours. expand and add selected colours to swatches. you'll get four swatches.

[Bill Silbert]

No. I'm saying that I haven't seen this image and would not want to raise expectations about it.

[Doug A Roberts]

expectations of what?

[Bill Silbert]

I just went back to look at the original question and based on exactly what was requested I cede your point.

[Doug A Roberts]

sorry if it seemed like i was labouring it. i just wanted to be sure what you meant.

[Bill Silbert]

No problem. We all are just here to help and get it right.

[Bill Silbert]

After you've hit the expand button that makes your tracing into live vector art select all and ungroup it. Then select one instance of the color and under the Select menu choose same fill color. Whatever gets selected can then be grouped. A word of warning though is that when a raster image is traced the colors may look even but will most likely contain variations in them and may not select as cleanly as you wish. You may have to make multiple selections of similar looking colors and then make a single group of them. Also, remember that an image trace is not the usual piece of Illustrator art. It may bring you surprises as you select and try to manipulate it.