Expert: Amy - 6/9/2006

Question
I have a grayscale Photoshop image that I want to place into
Illustrator then do a live trace. Then expand the live trace so I
have vector art. My question is after I get it this far how do I
convert the gray scale percentages to a spot color  ie: the area
that is 98% Black (k) changes to 98% PMS 485, the area that is
54% Black (k) changes to 54% PMS 485  etc…? The image is
complex so it would take foreever to conver each piece of it
individually. Is there a way to convert the whole image at one
time? I am using Illustrator 12.1 (CS2)

Answer
Hi Scott,

Can you create a preset/palette for the Live Trace that will fill it with your spot color right from the beginning?

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/mcmahon_frank/livetrace/livetrace.htm

Watch this video. He describes presets and loading palettes (he names Cool, Tiki, Forest) to use when running the live trace. You could create and save a palette that consists only of different percentages of your spot color, say 0%, 10%, 20%, and so on. The set up would involve a bit of work but not as much as selecting the tiny bits of image later. You could get as detailed as you want - create 10 shades of your spot or 100 shades.

I'd go for it.
Amy Pace