: Illustrator: How to create a swatch by combining two colors? In Photoshop, I would just add black and white on top of colors, change the opacity, and wallah... darker and lighter versions I

@Berryessa866

Using blends is a good technique for making intermediary colors.

You can however flatten your colors (so that you can then use the eyedropper on and create swatches, for example), which is useful if you have existing artwork that uses transparency and blending modes.

Simple procedure;


Select your artwork.
Object → Flatten Transparency...


Take this for example:



After flattening transparency:



Another option is to rasterize the artwork (Object → Rasterize...), use the eyedropper then undo the rasterization.

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@Si6392903

You can use the blend tool.

Go to Object>Blend>Blend Options

Then from the drop down list select Specified Steps and then in the adjacent cell type 1.



Then on the left panel choose blend tool



Then click each object with the two colours, you will get an average of that object's shape and colour.



Then you can use the colour picker to get the desired colour.

EDIT: While the objects are linked, you can change the colour of the two initial squares to get colours on the fly. So if you changed the red to green and the yellow to blue, you will get turquoise in the middle one straight away (without having to make the shapes again). Could be an option to create an action to create the shapes and blend. And when you need a colour, all you need to do then is select the two outside shapes and apply your colours to them.

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