Eye Dropper Tool Sampling Inquiry

[Carlton_Chin@adobeforums.com]

Is there a proper way to tell if the black used in type or vector art in an Illustrator file is made up of RGB or Grayscale with the eye dropper tool?

When I edit a PDF file via Illustrator (call it "File 1") and use the eye dropper to sample an object, it initially reads as 100% black based on RGB. Then I work on a different Illustrator file ("File 2") and take an eye dropper sample of an object, it reads as 100% black in Grayscale mode. Then when I go back to "File 1" it reads the same object that I took an eye dropper sample of earlier as 100% black in Grayscale and not RGB. What am I overlooking?

It seems that when I sample an object with the eye dropper tool it will give me values based on whatever color mode (RGB, Grayscale, CMYK) is selected in the color palette.

[Teri Pettit]

Carlton,

The eyedropper tool is irrelevant to this issue. The same thing happens without using the eyedropper tool (also without using PDF.)

Try this:

In an RGB document, draw two circles.

Set the Color palette to the RGB sliders, select one of them, and make it black.

Select the other circle, set the Color palette to the Grayscale sliders, and make it Grayscale black.

Click back and forth between the two objects, and the Color palette will continue to show Grayscale.

Draw a third black object, and switch the sliders to RGB. Now when you click around between the three objects, the Color palette will continue to show RGB, even though one of them is Grayscale.

The Color palette is a little schizophrenic, since the color mode can be viewed either as just a set of sliders (you can use CMYK sliders in an RGB document or vice versa), or as an attribute of the object. Mostly it gives priority to the mode you were last viewing. The exception is when it can't represent the selected color in the sliders being displayed, such as when you select a colored object when the sliders are at grayscale.

If you really need to know whether an object is specified in Grayscale vs RGB, you can use the Document Info palette, in the mode where you are viewing statistics of selected objects. It displays a count of the number of selected RGB objects and the number of selected Grayscale objects.