Editing colors in CMYK

Normal colors
and linked colors
can be edited in several color models
. One of these is CMYK
.

To edit a color in CMYK

1. Choose Color Editor from the Utilities menu.

2. Choose the color you want to edit from the menu or drag-and-drop it onto the editor.

3. Right-click on the Color Editor and select CMYK.

When editing a color using the CMYK color model, the Color Editor can be used in two modes:

This mode displays the four component colors as bars (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black)). To alter the level of each color, drag the marker or type values into the fields below the bars.

This mode displays a slice through a color cube. The small arrow button to the top of the cube changes the component on the diagonal axis of the cube, much like rotating it. The small color strip on it indicates the diagonal component.

On the right-hand side of the cube slice is the Key bar, ranging from 0% Key (no black) to 100% Key (black).

To edit the color, drag the marker on the slice, or drag the slice using the handle on the diagonal and move the marker on the Key color bar. When the marker on the cube slice is being dragged, the CTRL key can be held down to constrain its movement to horizontal and vertical.

The mode used is set using the 3D button. Deselect it for slider editing, select it for color cube editing. Use the mode you find most intuitive.

Note

If you are editing a linked color
, some of the values will be constrained by white boundaries (shown on the editing area) depending on the inheritance scheme in use.

The values can be edited in one of two units, percentages (0% to 100%) or values (0 to 255). Which is used is set by the Color Units setting, see Changing the color units. If you need to enter a value in the other format, you can force the units by typing (for example) "25%" (for a percentage) or "25d" (for 0 to 255 value).

_______________

Related Topics