Color fills on vector art

[RoyBoom]

I'm working with kids and trying to get them doing some work for t-shirts. I want to take a coloring book page, scan it in, convert to vector and then fill in colors. I've done the trace and it looks pretty good but what do I need to do to it to fill the color? I click on the outline and it highlights around the space I want to fill, but when I try it only changes all my outlines to the new color. I've been searching the web but not finding what to do. Maybe someone could direct to a website or youtube that would give me some direction. I'm using Freehand mx 11 on PC. Thanks.

[FFH Mark]

Hi Roy, it sounds like you have the STROKE selected in the color palette instead of the FILL. Switch to the FILL box on the far left side of the color palette.


You may also have a problem if the outlines are not "closed" paths. That is, each area to be colored must be a fully-enclosed shape. If you are doing a coloring book, wherever there is a space to be colored it needs to be independently outlined. For example, if you have a rectangle that you want to be colored yellow on one side and red on the other, you can't simply divide a rectangle box with a single line and fill it with two colors. You need to make two boxes and put them together to make the rectangle that then fills each side with a different color. Hope this makes sense.

[RoyBoom]

I think that is about what I've done now and it seems to be working. I go on my trace layer and click on the edge of the area I want to color and it highlights the outline of the area I want. I copy that outline, then go to my color layer and paste it there and it colors and I slide it into place. I thought there might be an easier way, but this seems to be working. Thanks.