phantasmCS | D e s i g n e r | S t u d i o
The essential Adobe Illustrator® color plugin range
Tutorials: Hue/Saturation and Actions
This tutorial applies the standard Phantasm CS Hue/Saturation Filter using Illustrator "Actions" automation system to create a rainbow-colored shell.
Inispired by an image of a cut-away shell (below), the Actions system present in Illustrator is an ideal tool to generate repetative patterns such as that found in the shell.
By using Actions to apply a Hue shift via Phantasm's Hue/Saturation color Filter, each automated step not only produces a desired pattern but also the rainbox color effect.
The basic resultant Illustrator shell is shown below:
In the final optional stage, this artwork is duplicated and embellished to create an overall design.
Stage 1
The basis of creating the shell shape is to draw a single "vane" of the shell, copy this, place behind the original, scale and rotate it a little. Repeat this with the new copy until a full spiral is produced.
In order to produce a successful result, a couple of considerations are essential:
- The centre of rotation needs to be clearly defined and adhered to
- The shape of the initial vane needs to be drawn with some consideration so that when repeated, the final form is correct
Firstly, create a new document. For this tutorial, a CMYK document was created, athough this tutorial applies equally well to RGB.
In order to define a centre-point, Illustrator's Guides will prove ideal. Guides are a non-print object type; typically an infinite horizontal or vertical line that can be snapped-to. To define a guide line quickly, ensure that Rulers are shown (select ) and the click-drag from one of the horizontal (left-hand) or vertical (top) rulers into the artboard area and release.
Create a cross-hair from a horizontal and vertical ruler where they cross-over roughly centre of the page. In order to protect these for being selected, deleted or moved, lock the guides ().
To draw more accurately in the next stages based on the guides just created, ensure that Smart Guides are enabled (). This snaps the drawing tools to the nearest lines or intersections, including the guides.
Stage 2
In this stage, the basis of the repeated segment shape will be drawn. It isn't in the scope of this tutorial to cover how to use the pen tool — which can admittedly present an steep initial learning curve. Instead, there are several excellent tutorials covering use of the pen tool which are highly recommended:
- Illustrator Pen tool exercises by Veerle Pieters
- Basic Drawing with Adobe Illustrator's Paths & Pen tool by Kevin Hulsey
- Tracing a drawing in Adobe Illustrator by UMass Office of Information Technologies (PDF)
Firstly, the extent of the shape will be determined by a circle. The presence of this circle is essential in later stages where the shape will be rotated and repeated; by using a circle, the centre-point of the shape will be maintained unlike an offset irregular object.
Change to the Ellipse drawing tool (click and hold down the in the Toolbox to view the different shapes on offer, including the ). Alternatively, so long as you are not in Text editing mode, simply press the key to change to the .
With the Smart Guide "snapping" to the centre of the cross hairs as you move the mouse pointer very nearby, start to drag out the circle. It is possible to ensure a perfect circle is created with the centre where you started dragging by holding down and simultaneously whilst dragging the shape out.
The size of the circle you create doesn't matter, but once created, zoom in so that the circle fills the view.
Next, create the shape that will be repeated. This example was based very closely on the original shell image using the shell as a basis for the shape. The only important considerations when creating the shape are to ensure that the lower point coincides with the Guides crosshair and the furthest point doesn't extend beyond the circle.
As shown above, the outline of the shape (red) is overlaid with a second object (yellow). Purposefully, the wall thickness is not perfect with slight variations created by tweaking the Bezier curves — this is to better represent a natural object.
A download is offered in the next stage giving the Illustrator shapes shown here...
Stage 3
This stage is concerned with coloring the objects drawn. It isn't no much the colors chosen that are critical (these can all be changed in the final result thanks to Phantasm CS's range of color control options); rather it is the technicalities of the coloring methods.
Neither shell objects should have a stroke (line) color, merely a fill color. If either do have a stroke, set the color to .
The main shell outline shape is first colored. Simply pick a cream or ivory color in the palette (CMYK color mode). This example has used values of 0% Cyan, 0% Magenta, 16% Yellow and 9% Black.
Next, apply a radial gradient fill to the overlaid second object. The outer color will be a pure Magenta for maximum vibrancy. Critically, the centre color (the left-hand grandient handle in the palette) will be set to 100% Magenta plus 100% Black. It is very important that it isn't merely pure black as this will create a "muddy" color transition in the gradient.
Adjust the gradient to suit by both dragging the gradient start and end points (use the in the toobox as shown above) as well as dragging the left-hand color stop to the right in the palette.
In this tutorial example, it is only the gradient we wish to re-color at each stage in the process. The cream shell wall should be left in-tact.
The method employed to ensure the shell wall will not shift in hue along with the gradient is based on an option featured in the Phantasm CS range — the ability to ignore spot colors.
Re-select the cream object and ensure that the fill square is active in the palette. From the palette's fly-out menu, select Create New Swatch...
In the resultant New Swatch window, enter a suitable name for the color (for example "Shell spot") and select as a . Click to define the shape as a the new spot color, which should also appear in the color palette.
Select the circle and specify as a fill and stroke. The circle remains on the page but becomes invisible.
Select both shell shape objects and group. Now select this group and the invisible circle (drag a box using the over the whole area) and group again.
You may download the ZIP-archived Illustrator file as per this stage (compatible with Illustrator CS and above) by clicking here.
Stage 4
Now that the artwork is created, it is time to create an Action to automate the process of duplicating, transforming and adjusting the color of each segment.
Actions are very much like using a video recorder; you simply start the record button and play out the sequence of events you wish to automate and then stop recording when done. If successful, clicking replay will repeat that exact sequence automatically.
The sequence of events that we wish to record for this example are:
- Duplicate the artwork (the group of objects previously created) by copying and placing to the back
- Transform the objects by scaling and rotating
- Shift the hue to the gradient
Firstly, ensure the group of objects is selected and then open the palette window (select ).
Before creating the new Action, it is best to create a new Action set — effectively a folder or section to separate this from any Actions which may already exist. To do so, click on the button in the palette lower button bar as shown below:
Specify a new set name. In this tutorial, it was titled "Shell tutorial".
To create a new Action, click on the button. This will automatically set the recording process in motion indicated by the red highlighted "recording" button in the same button bar:
Again, in this example the new Action was titled "Shell rotate and colour".
Remember that most Illustrator actions are being recorded now. It is possible to delete unwanted actions afterwards (such as saving the document), but try to follow these instructions precisely.
Next, select from the menu (this should now appear in the Actions palette) followed by from the same menu. This will create a duplicate of the original and the new copy will be hidden behind the original and selected.
Open the window (), tick the option. For this object, it was found that scaling of 107% in both the horizontal and vertical, and rotation of -25° works well. Note that by default the origin is central (the small 9 square icon below the right-hand options) which is ideal and applies to this group, which essentially equates to centre of the invisible circle.
Click which should fix the transformation and become part of the Action list.
This is the point where Phantasm CS's unique Illustrator color control tools come into play.
Open the Hue/Saturation Filter (). If you have previously changed many settings in Phantasm CS, you may wish to first reset to the default options by selecting from the pull-down menu as shown below:
Next, change the Hue value/slider to a value of . If remains ticked, the color gradient in the artwork should change slightly towards red.
To ensure that the carefully set-up shell spot color is not affected with the color change, tick the option. This ensures that only the gradient fill will be changed.
Notes:
- The Filter color control was used rather than the live Effect variant. Effects can not normally be added to Actions and in this example would only cause an excessive number of Effects to be "stacked" in the Appearance palette with no benefit.
- If Phantasm CS's advanced options are shown, it is possible to determine whether should take place. It is advised that it remains unticked (default) as repeating the color adjustment process would cause a dramatic increase in color gradient stops, which again brings no immediate benefit in this example.
Click to apply the color change. The Actions palette will show the new entry and store all Phantasm CS information including the option to ignore spot colors.
Click in the palette, shown below:
This finishes off the process of creating an Action!
If you wish to download the Action set shown above, you may find the file by clicking here. To load this Action, select from the palette fly-out menu.
Before using the Action, it is highly advised that the dialog mode is toggled off. By default this is on and would force confirmation of each and window when played back. To toggle this off, click on the menu icon shown below:
To test the new Action, ensure the newly created shell segment has remained selected (if not, click on the right-hand object group) as well as the Action, and simply click on the button as shown below:
This should have caused the whole process to be repeated resulting in a new transformed and color-adjusted segment.
Stage 5
This is the fun part. Simply keep on clicking on the button as per the previous step. Before you the shell will appear, each segment changing color like a radial rainbow.
When happy with the number of segments, you may wish to hide the Guides as they no longer serve a purpose. To do so, select .
The result is shown below:
To remove the now unecessary invisible circles, select all objects () and ungroup once (). Deselect all by clicking outside the selection with the or opting for .
In order to see the otherwise invisible circles, change to the Outline rendering mode (). Select one of the circles and then choose . This will select all the circles which have no fill or stroke color. Delete these by pressing the key or selecting .
Return to the Overprint Preview rendering mode ().
Using the it is then possible to edit the final shell segment so it finishes off the shell as shown below:
If you wish to continue embellishing the shell, it is advised that all segments are first selected and then grouped.
It is possible to quickly cycle through the colors of all segments by selecting the shell group and using either the Filter or live Effect Phantasm CS color adjustment tool. By altering the Hue slider, each gradiation shifts in color:
Note that at this stage the option remains ticked. If you wish to use the design, or the technique to stop certain colors from changing in any form of commercial print work, it is highly advised that the spot color swatch is reversed back to process rather than spot.
Stage 6
This final stage is optional and the example given does involve the use of the tool only found in Phantasm CS Designer and Studio. In addition, a the "Romain Mosaic" Halftone setting found in this page was used. If not already done so, it is advised that these Halftone settings are downloaded and either installed as described or made ready for loading individually when required.
In order to further enhance the artwork, some simple steps were taken. Firstly, the shell group was copied and pasted behind the original. It was then scaled up to about 160% of the original's size.
The live Effect was then opened () and the Roman Mosaic setting selected (if previously installed) or loaded via the window's button. This instantly provides the following result:
Additional steps included:
- Copying, scaling and positioning smaller versions of the shell and applying alternative transparency settings including , and as well as Hue adjustments via the Phantasm CS tool.
- Applying an Outer Glow live Effect () to the original shell (, select black as the color)
The result can then be made to resemble this final image:
A copy of the Illustrator file may be downloaded by clicking here. Note that any of the live Effects remain in-tact.
A PDF copy of the end result may also be downloaded by clicking here.