Recoloring a Brush

[Rick_Arnaud@adobeforums.com]

Hi all-
I'm trying to change the color of a brush from one of the libraries. Read the manual, but still can't get it. I went to brush options, then clicked the color picker. I want to change the stroke to Reflex Blue but it won't allow me to pick any colors from my swatches, etc... Are the brushes that limited in color options? Can anyone help me out? Running XP Pro with CS, BTW...
Thanks!

[James_E._Talmage@adobeforums.com]

Take a look in online help about colorization modes. Double-click one of the brushes. At the bottom of the dialog is a colorization popup, which lets you select None, Tints & Shades, Tints, or Hue Shift. Depending upon which of these you choose, and the artwork contained in the brush, the brush strokes will re-color when you apply a stroke color to the base path. There's a tips button right next to it which will give you a color example of how the different colorization modes work.

Try it. It's a great feature.

JET

[Toni Toomey]

Rick,

The Colorization feature is very cool and gives you color effects you'd never think of yourself (at least I wouldn't think of them). However, all of the results are still somewhat controlled by Illustrator.

If you want to start from scratch coloring the brush, try this:
1. Use the Paintbrush tool to create a single unit of the brush.
2. With the path that you painted with the brush selected, go to Object>Expand Appearance. This will turn the brush itself into a vector object or objects (it's kind of like applying Create Outlines to text).

3. The objects will be grouped. You can either ungroup them or select them individually with the Direct Selection or the Group Selection tool.

4. Color away.

5. Select the whole group again and click on the New Brush icon in the Brushes palette. Have at it with the settings in the dialog boxes that appear, and bingo. New brush. Your colors.

Surgeon General's Warning: Messing with the colors of a brush, whatever method you use, can be highly addicting.

Cheers, Toni

[Rick_Arnaud@adobeforums.com]

Thanks to both of you!

I've been playing with it and actually figured out the expand appearance thing on my own, but have yet to really get into it. Luckily, for this particular job, I'm doing a small run of digital color postcards so for once, I can go nuts on colors.

I visit these forums a few times a day and I greatly appreciate everyone for their input. It's a great thing.
Rick

[Hopkins_Chris@adobeforums.com]

Expand the object and recolor if you want spot color seps, or else coler with cyan and have you printer use that film for reflex blue.