Exporting to Flash

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Running Illustrator CS on winXP: I can't gets colors to remain true when I expand a gradient to export it to Flash. Is it just me? Try this: Fill a rectangle with the rainbow gradient found in the RGB default swatches while in RGB colorspace in Illustrator. Now expand it to 12 objects. The colors are suddenly dull, like CYMK colors, not RGB. Is this a bug? Is there a way to fix it? I want to take vectors and true colors to Flash, not rasters and/or wrong colors. Thanks.

Barbara

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Barbara,

>>The colors are suddenly dull, like CYMK colors<<

Even after you have de-selected the objects? Whilst selected they will look
dull, due to the bounding boxes being displayed in the layer colour, but
once you de-select they should appear 'normal'

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Len. I did take a close look at my "dull" colors as you suggested, but they really are dull. I discovered that I can use Vector Studio's sampler tools (color tool) to sample a copy of my original "bright" gradient to my expanded "dull" gradient, and thus restore the bright, RGB colors to the expanded gradient, but this is time consuming and labor intensive. I was hoping someone else had noticed this phenomenon when expanding a gradient, and could confirm my experience. If true, I think it must be a bug. Thanks. Barbara

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

I'm not seeing it here, Barbara.

Have you tried deleting your aiprefs file? (Details in the FAQ at the top of
this Forum's Topic List.

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi Len,

Yes, I did delete my aiprefs file and then reset everything I could think of to RGB: Color settings to Web Graphics Default, Document color mode to RGB. When I tried again though, I had the same problem. If you want to see, follow this link. <http://www.bitsong.com/bitsong/pages/rgbcymk.html> The top rectangle is the original rainbow gradient; the middle one is a copy of the top one expanded in Illustrator; and the bottom one is the original rainbow gradient rasterized, taken to Photoshop and changed to CYMK mode. If only my copy of Illustrator is doing this, where can I get one like yours? :-)

Barbara

P.S. I just noticed something else, I had specified 12 steps in my expansion, but obviously, there are many more than 12 in the middle rectangle. If I specify 3 steps, I get about 12, again in CYMK colors.

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Hi Barbara,

>>If I specify 3 steps, I get about 12, <<

Bet it's 15 <g> It seems to be 5x the figure entered, but I don't know why.

I'm seeing the same thing you are, both in the number of steps and the
colour when I look a little more closely. Strangely the colours remain OK
when expanding to a mesh object.

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi Len,

>> I'm seeing the same thing you are. << I'm glad I'm not crazy. Thanks for trying my experiment. Another strange thing. The expanded RGB gradient not only has too many steps, and CYMK colors, it has a clipping path at the top on the innermost group. Expanded blends don't have this clipping path.

>> colours remain OK when expanding to a mesh object. << I noticed that too, and I really like mesh objects, but they export to Flash as raster objects, not vector; and I notice you cannot expand them to individual path objects in Illustrator either.

Do you think I could take this to Adobe support with the reasonable expectation that it won't cost me $$ for the call? In other words, do you think it is a genuine bug? Thanks.

Barbara

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Hi Barbara,

>>do you think it is a genuine bug? <<

It looks like it. Even without the colour problem, the fact that number of
steps doesn't equal the requested number logically must be a bug.

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi Len,

I went back to Illustrator v.9 (I skipped 10 upgrade) and tried expanding an RGB gradient. Same thing happened, CYMK colors and too many steps. If this is something they haven't fixed between v.9 and CS, I don't hold out much hope for finding a cure with 1 phone call; glad I have my Vector Studio work around. I won't have a chance to call Adobe during their hours until Wednesday - I'll let you know what they say.
Barbara

[James_Talmage@adobeforums.com]

"Even without the colour problem, the fact that number of
steps doesn't equal the requested number logically must be a bug."

I think the number of blend steps is *per color stop* in the blend. You can see this if you remove one of the color stops from the blend, then Expand again using 3 steps. The total number of steps will be 3 less.

As for the color thing, I don't know what gives there. Try this:

Apply the rainbow grad. Delete all the steps except two, drag them to each end of the grad and make them both the 255 green. Now, with one of the color stops selected, look at the Color Mixer. See that little color chip icon named "In Gamut Color"? That's the color the green will get converted to if you expand this grad. Even with Color Management Turned off, and with "Don't Color Manage This Document" turned on.

Since this is an RGB document, which gamut is the "In Gamut Color" chip refering to? The gamut of the printer? Okay, change the printer to Adobe PDF and set its color profile to Same As Source. The Blend still converts to the ugly olive drab instead of G255 when expanded.

I don't get it.

JET

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

James,

>>I think the number of blend steps is *per color stop* in the blend. <<

Good thinking! That would certainly explain the situation as regards the
number of steps.

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi Len and JET,

<< See that little color chip icon named "In Gamut Color"? >>

Deke McClelland says in *Real World Illustrator 9* (copyright 2000) p. 537 "The out-of-gamut warning symbol used to mean that you had to manually fix a color to get it back to a legal CYMK color. The new restricted colorspace options in Illustrator 9 fix that problem for you. This is one of the benefits of the new restricted colorspaces. --- Out-of-gamut colors are automatically converted when you switch to the CYMK colorspace. If you have no intention of printing your illustration, you can confidently ignore this warning and happily go about using your color with reckless disregard of any CYMK ramifications."

Could it be that Illustrator is assuming that you always want to print (in CYMK) any gradient that you expand? Maybe there is no way around this "benefit."

Barbara

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Barbara,

>>Could it be that Illustrator is assuming <<

Well if it is it shouldn't be! If the document is in an RGB colour space,
then anything you do within that document shouldn't shift colours to fit a
completely different colour space. The only times that colour value should
be modified is when printing to a different colour space or converting the
document to a different colour space.

[James_E._Talmage@adobeforums.com]

"Could it be that Illustrator is assuming that you always want to print (in CYMK) any gradient that you expand?"

It certainly seems to be assuming that. But that would be a dumb assumption for an RGB document. I mean, you're trying to take colors to Flash, but one might just as likely have electronic distribution via PDF in mind. And what would justify the conversion to a CMYK gamut for expanded grads but not other things? For example, it doesn't make the conversion for an expanded Blend in the same document, using the same initial RGB colors.

I think it's time for an Adobe person to jump in here and explain this.

JET

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi Len and JET,

I just got off the pnone with Adobe tech support. After some back and forth (about 40 min on my phone card) to establish the nature of the bug, the tech support person, JR, sent it on to an engineer. I should hear something back from JR or the engineer, or possibly see a fix for it on the Adobe site. I'll keep you posted.

Barbara

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for coming back with that Barbara

[steama@adobeforums.com]

You found a genuine BUG. You can report it here: <http://www.adobe.com/misc/bugreport.html>

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi Steama, Len, JET,

>> You found a genuine BUG. You can report it here: <<

I just submitted a BUG report, per your advice. Now, I have reported it by phone to their tech support person, and by bug report on the Adobe site.

Just in case it takes Adobe a while to fix this :-) I have posted a work-around on my website -- <http://www.bitsong.com/bitsong/pages/bug.html>

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, my work-around is tedious and time consuming and needs the Illustrator plugin Vector Studio, but if your work absolutely, positively *has* to be a gradient expanded to its true colors, there is a way. Thanks all.
Barbara

[Barbara_Parkman@adobeforums.com]

Hi,

JR from Adobe support called me back to tell me he had heard back from the Adobe engineers about the BUG. They said that "I had given them quite a project, and that there was no current work-around." I told JR I had found a work-around using the Illustrator plugin Vector Studio, and gave him the link to the tutorial I made <http://www.bitsong.com/bitsong/pages/bug.html>

Barbara

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Thanks for coming back with that, Barbara.