1 Correct answer
You can find many Compound Patths after Image Trace.
Just check the Document Info Panel on Objects.
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Actions will get you a long way.
You can start by opening an image in Illustrator, this has the advantage that the Swatches panel is empty.
Unfortunately Image Trace cannot be recorded with a preset, so you need to select one manually.
The rest can be semi automated:
An action to expand the Image Trace and adding the colors to the Swatches Panel
When a swatch is selected, an action can select the same fill colors, cut the selection, create a new Layer (recorded by clicking the New Layer Icon with the Cmd (or Ctrl for Win) key depressed to avoid recording naming the layer) and paste the result. You need to play this action for every color.
Hi, here's a simple script that will arrange all pathItems of a specific color into separate layers:
function deliminateColors() {
var doc = app.activeDocument, items = [];
for (var i = doc.pathItems.length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
doc.pathItems[i].filled ? items.push(doc.pathItems[i]) : null;
items.forEach(function (item) {
checkForLayer(rgbToHex(item.fillColor)) ? addToLayer(item) : createLayer(item);
});
}
function checkForLayer(name) {
var doc = app.activeDocument, found = false;
for (var i = 0; i < doc.layers.length; i++)
if (new RegExp("^" + name + "$").test(doc.layers[i].name))
found = true;
return found;
}
function createLayer(item) {
var layer = app.activeDocument.layers.add();
layer.name = rgbToHex(item.fillColor);
layer.color = item.fillColor;
addToLayer(item);
}
function addToLayer(item) {
var layer = app.activeDocument.layers.getByName(rgbToHex(item.fillColor));
item.move(layer, ElementPlacement.PLACEATEND);
}
function rgbToHex(color) {
return "#" + [color.red, color.green, color.blue]
.map(function (c) {
c = c < 256 ? Math.abs(c).toString(16) : 0;
return c.length < 2 ? "0" + c : c;
}).join("");
}
Array.prototype.forEach = function (callback) {
for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i++)
callback(this[i], i, this);
};
Array.prototype.map = function (callback) {
var mappedParam = [];
for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i++)
mappedParam.push(callback(this[i], i, this));
return mappedParam;
};
deliminateColors();
Results in Layers panel on the left with a 16-color image trace for simplicity:
Since you're using Image Trace and didn't give too much detail, I assumed you only wanted fills to be checked, item names intact, layer names to be the specified color in hexadecimal form, the layer label to be equal to this color (though this would make selection hard, comment out the layer.color line in createLayer() to remove), and didn't touch the original layers just in case there's more to the document than these items.
I somehow do not get the script working, it gives the following error:
No errors this time, but it seems the script changes the colors of some objects.
Hi Ton, the issue for this file is that the layers are created in the order which colors are detected, and there is no way to stack these 3 final layers in such a way that it completely preserves the all original path zIndex positions since overlaps exist within this sample. I may be wrong and can try flipping the stacking order to place objects at the bottom as they move to the layer, but I assume this is the problem. For example, in the script output when you rearrange the layer order:
As you can see, nothing was actually removed or recolored but rather the stacking order was changed since the request was to put them in separate layers and layers must exist below or above one another. If a setting for Image Trace which had no overlap were used this would not be a problem, and I could solve this in a few different ways but it wasn't technically in scope of the original question so I didn't know that I had to, also without knowing what settings OP is using or anything about their desired output I'd only be making further assumptions that might not be what they'd intended.
If it's needed I can add it in
So just to clarify:
- The script inevitably rearranges your artwork
- In the event of overlaps, the color more recently found will always be placed on top
- In most instances, Traces with larger color profiles will work better than lower, as seen in the 16 color capture below:
In the above, the stacking order doesn't matter nearly as much so the inevitable rearranging tends to impact less because Curve Fitting for higher profiles seems to avoid overlapping (so when you toggle visibility of a color off, you don't see anything below except canvas/transparent) whereas 3 - 6 colors seem to prefer overlap. I did switch the color detection order in the original script and that produces the above result, which I think is 98% indistinguisable from the original and certainly pretty good.
But again, without knowing the actual requirements of the OP, it's not easy to create a script that has a perfect result.
I did a simple testt, the script does not select and move compound paths, but selects and moves the individual paths that make the compound paths (and have the same color).
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