Have you ever spent numerous hours working on a vector art piece only to have someone stroll in at the very last second and say they don’t like the color scheme or don’t want any color at all? Don’t worry; we’ll show you how to quickly modify the image’s color in Illustrator.

Open the color palette and select Simulate Colored Paper to simulate colored paper for background images. Click OK after selecting your color. Finally, insert your transparent-background PNG picture. For full images, select Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to Grayscale. This will turn them black and white. You can now select any color by clicking the Swatches option on the left bar.

Let’s move forward to our detailed color-changing guide.

Changing Image Colors In Illustrator: A Guide

The background picture and the whole image are the two types of images that are the subject of the tutorial that follows. Keep reading!

For more detailed instructions on how to change image colors in Illustrator, check out this video below:

For Background Images

Image editors often look for ways to change the color of Illustrator images, especially the color of the image in the background. It’s possible that you’re using stock photographs that clash with the backdrop image or that the customer wants them modified. 

Whatever your reason, you can quickly alter the background color of an Illustrator image by following these easy steps.

1. Illustrator must first be launched before you can begin altering the images’ colors. 
2. Create a new document after that and make the proper selections for the artboards, color mode, and dimension. 
3. Once you’ve finished with that step, select File > Document Setup. A pop-up box will then appear. 
4. Open the Color Palette after checking the Simulate Colored Paper box.

You should now be able to see a color wheel that you can freely alter. Here, you can experiment with different colors. Simply choose one color for the background and click OK when you are satisfied with your selection. Then return to the Document Setup and click OK. 

Voila! You’ve finally converted the background color of your image, so you can start designing your new document. Just add the transparent-background PNG image, and you’re done.

For Whole Images

What if you wanted to alter the color of an entire piece of art? You can simply change all of the colors in a vector graphic in a few easy steps, so you don’t need to change each one individually. Opening the file you want to recolor in Illustrator is the first step in changing the color of the image.

Check the right top bar to see if the image is embedded rather than linked.

Select Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to Grayscale to turn an image into grayscale. You can now select any color by clicking the Swatches option on the left bar. This is a helpful tip for converting the Illustrator image’s color to a single shade.

Start with the original image if you want to alter the color in a variety of tones or get rid of certain hues. A pop-up window will appear after selecting Edit > Edit Colors > Adjust Color Balance. If the document is in RGB mode, you can modify the slider or remove any color entirely. 

The CMYK mode works the same way.

Last Words

With Illustrator, you may change the color of an image in a number of different ways. It seems rather straightforward, doesn’t it? It is much simpler to change the image’s color in Illustrator compared to using any other editing tool. 

However, perfecting these techniques still takes a considerable amount of time and effort. With the information shared in this article, we hope you’ll be able to do some editing of your own.