Swatch Names in Illustrator and Their Connection to Photoshop Spot Channels

If you like to keep your swatch names in Illustrator organized (as you should), remember that when you place a Photoshop file that contains spot channels in an Illustrator document, the spot channel colors are added to the Illustrator Swatch panel. And the names appear exactly as they are written in the Photoshop channel.

So if you have a swatch created in Illustrator that is supposed to print the same color as the color in the Photoshop file, it should be written the exact same way. If it’s not, when the Photoshop file is placed in Illustrator, a new swatch will be added in addition to the swatch in Illustrator.

You can quickly fix this conflict by first clicking on the swatch color name in the Swatch panel that comes from the Photoshop file, then hold your Command key (Control key on PC) and click on the similar (but different) name of the swatch created in Illustrator. Then, with both swatches highlighted, select ‘Merge Swatches’ from Swatch panel option menu. This will combine the swatches into one to ensure that they separate to the same printing plate. This will also match the coloring of any vector graphic in the file to that of the spot color in the Photoshop file.

If you try to merge the name of the swatch from the Illustrator file to that of the Photoshop file…it won’t work. The swatch name from the Photoshop file is essentially locked into the Illustrator file. That’s because you can’t make changes to a Photoshop file using Illustrator. Makes sense.

If you prefer the swatch name format from the Illustrator file, just open the Photoshop file and change the name of the spot channel to match that of the Illustrator file. After you’ve saved the file and refreshed the Illustrator document, the swatch will combine with the Illustrator swatch. But the old Photoshop swatch name will probably still exist. You can get rid of it by selecting ‘Select All Unused’ and click on the trash icon in the swatch panel. If that doesn’t work, you should save the document, close it and reopen it. That will free up any unused swatches to be deleted.

CUSTOM SPOT COLORS

If you’ve created a custom spot color in both the Illustrator & Photoshop documents, but they are of different hues/tints, the hue/tint that exists in the Illustrator document will be adapted to the color from the Photoshop file. This is not a bad thing. It will ensure that your colors are common throughout all files associated with the primary Illustrator file. The hue and tint in the Photoshop file will stay the same. It will just appear different in Illustrator to ensure a match color.

If this isn’t to your liking you can adjust the swatch color in Illustrator to match that of the Photoshop file. This is probably the better approach anyway. It keeps things clean and organized.