Colourways can be automatically created using the Inspire feature located in the toolbar of the Layout Window. This is an extremely powerful feature as the user has full control over which colours the inspiration for the new colourways comes from.
You can base the changes on the existing colours in the original colourway, or you can choose to base your new colourways on a specific colour file, or a different design altogether.
Although the feature lends itself to a multitude of different workflows, we have added a couple of suggested workflows below for you to get started with.
- Open a Layout Window and add a new colourway object to the page.
- Go to Colourway Menu > Make Colourways use the shortcut in the toolbar.
- Enter the number of additional colourways you wish to add to the design and click OK. Leave Random from Colourfile blank for now. This will create 5 new colourways, and all layers in the new colourways will be black:
- The requested number of colourways will be added to the file, and you can see these by opening the Colourway Chooser in the Layers Palette:
Alternatively, you can open the Colourway Browser to see your newly added colourways.
The Tile function offers an easy and speedy way of laying these new colourways out on your Layout Window, ready for recolouring.
- Choose to Tile ‘All Colourways’ from the Tile pop up menu. You can also specify how many colourways sit across your page using this feature.
Use the Set Page function in the toolbar to quickly set the size of the Layout Window to fit neatly around your tiled colourways.
Tip: Use the Set Page function in the toolbar to quickly set the size of the Layout Window to fit neatly around your tiled colourways.
- All the colourway objects on the page will be selected, apart from the first colourway. Leave this set up as it is and select Inspire from the toolbar and the following window will open:
The following window will open:
Source
Select the design you wish your new colourways to be inspired from. This can be the design you are currently colouring, or a different design, perhaps a co-ordinate! Alternatively select Random from Colourfile from the list. This will randomly colour your layers using the colours from the active colour file.
Inspiration Colourway (blank for self) – this determines which colourway the new formulations are based on. If you leave this option blank the inspiration will be taken from the layer colours already in the selected colourways. This option should only be selected if you already have more than one colourway in your design. The set button located to the right of this option can be used to set the inspirational colourway to the active colourway object on the page.
Inspiration Colourway (blank for self)
This determines which colourway the new formulations are based on. If you leave this option blank the inspiration will be taken from the layer colours already in the selected colourways. This option should only be selected if you already have more than one colourway in your design. The set button located to the right of this option can be used to set the inspirational colourway to the active colourway object on the page.
- H slider bar - adjusts the hue of colours
- C slider bar - adjusts the chroma, or saturation of colours
- L slider bar - adjusts the lightness of colours
The Dice
Clicking this icon effectively “rolls the dice” and generates different colourways with each role for each selected colourway. Continue clicking the dice until you see some colourways you like. If you like a particular one and want to prevent it from changing the next time you roll the dice, you can hold down ⌘ (command key) and click on that colourway. This will deactivate it, thus removing it from the selection.
Constrain to Colourfile
This option restricts the colours used for the new colourways which have been defined by the changes to the HCL sliders to those in the active colour file.
Note: If you have Constrain to Colourfile and Unique Colours selected, duplicate colours will be used if the colour file does not contain enough colours to make each layer unique. A message will be displayed alerting you to this.
Unique colours
This will ensure each layer of the resulting colourways is coloured uniquely.
Constrain to Monitor Gamut
If Random From Colourfile is selected, the chosen colours will also be constrained to your monitor profile.
Constrain to Printer Gamut
If Random From Colourfile is selected, the chosen colours will also be constrained to your printer profile.
Note: Monitor and printer gamut constraints might not be satisfied if you have Constrain to Colourfile selected because we always give priority to the latter. This means when we generate a new colour we check if it’s part of the current colour file and if it’s not we use its closest alternative from the colour file which can be out of gamut. It is also possible to fail to satisfy the gamut constraints if the margins given in H, C and L are too small.