How to Create Grayscale in Adobe Illustrator for UV Textured Printing
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Adobe Tutorials
Adobe Tutorials · Illustrator
How to Create Grayscale in Adobe Illustrator for UV Textured Printing
If you're working on textured UV prints, you've probably heard about converting your artwork into grayscale. Many tutorials show how to do this in Photoshop—but what if you don't use Photoshop?
Good news: you can create grayscale directly in Adobe Illustrator, and it's super quick. Here's how.
Why it matters
Why Grayscale Matters for UV Printing
When creating textured or layered prints, grayscale tells your printer how much ink to lay down.
Black
Maximum ink
White
No ink
Shades of gray
Varying ink levels
This simple setup lets you create depth, texture, and dimension in your designs—no Photoshop required.
Walkthrough
Making the Grayscale Trace
Open Image Trace
Select your image in Illustrator. Go to Window > Image Trace to open the Image Trace panel.
Switch to Grayscale Mode
In the Image Trace panel, change the Mode to Grayscale, then click Trace. That's it! Illustrator automatically converts your image into a grayscale vector.
Adjust if Needed
From here, you can refine the results by tweaking thresholds or simplifying paths. But for most UV printing projects, the default grayscale trace is all you need.
Why Illustrator
Why Use Illustrator Instead of Photoshop?
Vector-based workflow. Illustrator keeps everything scalable and easy to edit. Less software switching—you don't need to bounce between programs. Quick setup—perfect for when you need results fast.
Final thoughts
Final Thoughts
Creating grayscale in Illustrator is one of the simplest ways to prepare artwork for textured UV prints. With just a couple of clicks, you'll have a clean grayscale vector ready for your printer.
So next time you're setting up a textured print project, skip Photoshop—you've already got everything you need in Illustrator.
Ready to print
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