Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 7/28/2008

Question
QUESTION: My company has a five color logo and would like to have a black and white version.  I have the color version as a JPEG and a .pdf.  I know this should be an easy thing to do, but all I find on CS3 Help is about color wheels, etc.  It seems to assume I already know how to do the simple things.  Thanks for your help.

ANSWER: Hi Tom,

In Photoshop, you can change the color of your jpg by going to Image>Mode>Grayscale.

You can also open the pdf in Illustrator, and once you have the image selected, go to the color guide. Click the color wheel button at the base of the palette. This will take you to live color.

Then, click on the "assign" tab and click the grayscale color family. Then hit ok on everything and you should have converted this to a grayscale pdf.

Thanks

Kevin



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Kevin,
Thanks for your answer(s).  The first one using Photoshop worked perfectly, but in Illustrator the "assign" tab would not enable.  I tired this several times, but it never worked.
Also, is there a way to go to one Pantone solid color instead of black?

Thanks for your help,

Tom

Answer
Hi Tom,

You have to select only Illustrator objects (not placed images) in order for the assign tab to work. If you have placed artwork in this project, be sure to NOT select it. Assign doesnt work on them.

Once you have the assign tab working, there is a pulldown option at the top of the window for "(Number of colors) job" ie "1 color job", "2 color job", etc. You can select a one color job and then choose your pantone color. This will automatically assign a pantone color to your vector (Illustrator) objects in your artwork.

Thanks

Kevin