Adobe teases cool new Illustrator colour trick

Finding the right colours for any piece of design can sometimes be the hardest part of the process. You might have your colour theory completely nailed and the hex codes for your go-to hues committed to memory, but sometimes the perfect palette can elude you.

Getting that killer palette can be less painful in Illustrator CC, as you can simply go back into each layer and adjust its colour as you please, but even that's not entirely ideal. If you're deep into a large, intricate piece and suddenly come across a design or photo with a selection of colours that would fit beautifully with your work, copying and applying them layer by layer can be a slow and arduous process.

• Illustrator tutorials: The best tuts to sharpen your skills

However Adobe might be riding to your rescue with a way to change the entire colour scheme of your work with a single click. At OFFF in Barcelona, it's given a sneak preview of a new Illustrator Recolour feature that enables you to transfer colours from images and photos to your artwork, seamlessly and easily.

It all seems deliciously straightforward and effective. Simply import reference images and photos to your library, and Illustrator will analyse them and extract their colour palettes. Once that's done, all you need to is select any image in order to apply its colours to your work, and you'll see all your colour fills update instantaneously.

Not only is it useful for getting you out of those holes when none of your colourways are working, it also looks like just the thing for quickly creating an assortment of colour variants for a design, with hardly any effort.

There's no word from Adobe as to when Recolour will be rolled out to users; apparently it's coming soon, but if this sneak peek is anything to go by then it'll be well worth the wait. You can find out more on the Adobe blog.

Related articles:

• A short lesson on colour theory
• The best premium and free Illustrator brushes
• The essential guide to colour correction