HueLumino Manual

Quick start

HueLumino supports Adobe Illustrator® 2026 software on Apple Silicon macOS. Open an Illustrator document before launching the panel.

Open the panel.
In Illustrator, choose Window › Extensions (Legacy) › HueLumino.
Select vector artwork.
The header reports how many editable color targets were found.
Choose a tool.
Open HSL, Color Balance, Levels, or another adjustment. The selection is locked for that preview session.
Adjust, then decide.
Choose Apply Changes to commit, Keep Editing to return to the controls, or Discard Changes to restore the source colors.

HueLumino home panel with all tool groups visible — Select artwork first. Tools remain dimmed until the panel finds supported color targets.

Preview workflow

Each tool starts a focused preview session. The panel keeps the captured source colors tied to the working selection so Discard Changes can return supported colors to their starting values.

Live Preview updates the canvas while controls move. Turn it off when a very large selection is expensive to redraw.
Apply Changes commits the current preview and ends the session.
Keep Editing closes the decision prompt and returns to the active controls.
Discard Changes restores solid colors, text ranges, gradients, and supported Appearance sources captured at the start.

The panel checks selection changes. If you select different artwork or press Back during a preview, the panel asks you to apply or discard before it moves on.

Turn Live Preview off when you want to make several control changes before updating the canvas.

Discard color changes confirmation with Keep Editing and Discard Changes buttons — Discard Changes ends the preview and returns captured, supported colors to their starting values.

Targets & Protect

Target switches decide which supported color sources the active tool may edit. Protection switches exclude chosen color types and neutral ranges.

Control	What it affects
Solid fills	Flat fill colors on supported vector and text content.
Strokes	Editable stroke colors.
Gradients	Main gradient stops while retaining the gradient structure.
Nested artwork	Supported descendants inside selected groups and compound content.
Text	Character-level colors, including mixed-color text ranges.
Appearance	Supported editable colors stored in the Illustrator Appearance stack.

Protection ranges

Protect Black, White, or Grays when those colors should remain neutral. The panel excludes a protected color from the edit, so the target count may be lower than the number of visible colors in the selection.

Expanded Targets and Protect controls with their available switches — Review Targets and Protect before making a broad adjustment to mixed artwork.

Adjustments

These tools change color and tone across the supported sources in the locked selection.

Hue / Saturation / LightnessShift hue, intensity, and perceived lightness together. Colorize applies one chosen hue family while retaining tonal differences.
Vibrance / Brightness / ContrastRaise muted color intensity, adjust overall luminance, and expand or compress tonal separation.
Temperature & TintMove the selection along warm–cool and green–magenta axes.

Hue, Saturation, and Lightness tool with Colorize option — Hue / Saturation / Lightness

Vibrance, Brightness, and Contrast sliders — Vibrance / Brightness / Contrast

Temperature and Tint sliders — Temperature & Tint

Color tools

Use these when the edit depends on tonal ranges, source hue families, or mapped colors.

Color BalancePush cyan/red, magenta/green, and yellow/blue independently in shadows, midtones, or highlights. Preserve Luminosity limits unwanted tonal movement.
Color GradingTint shadows, midtones, and highlights with separate draggable color wheels, then refine blending and balance.
Color MixerTarget hue families and adjust each family without treating the whole selection as one color.
Gradient MapRemap source luminance through editable color stops. Drag a stop to position it; double-click the ramp to create a stop or a stop to remove it.

Color Balance tool set to Midtones with Preserve Luminosity enabled — Color Balance

Color Grading tool showing its Shadows color wheel — Color Grading

Color Mixer tool with source hue family controls — Color Mixer

Gradient Map tool with an editable black-to-white ramp — Gradient Map

Tone & detail

These tools reshape luminance relationships or produce monochrome output.

LevelsDrag the black, gamma, and white input triangles beneath the histogram. Output triangles limit the darkest and lightest result.
CurvesClick the curve to add control points, then drag points to reshape the tonal response. Remove unwanted interior points from the graph.
GrayscaleRemove chroma using the plugin’s managed luminance conversion.
B&W MixerControl how source hue families translate into monochrome brightness.
InvertInvert editable colors while honoring Targets and Protect settings.

Levels tool with an RGB histogram and input and output controls — Levels

Curves tool showing a linear Master curve — Curves

Grayscale tool with one adjustment slider — Grayscale

Black and White Mixer with source hue family sliders — B&W Mixer

Invert tool with an Invert selected colors option — Invert

Troubleshooting

The panel reports zero color targets

Confirm that artwork is selected and that the relevant Target switches are enabled. Check Protect Black, White, and Grays if the selection is neutral. Linked, raster, mesh, pattern, spot, and global swatch sources may be skipped when they cannot be edited safely.

An unsupported object will be skipped

This warning does not mean the full edit failed. Supported colors can still change. The warning identifies source types, such as spot or global swatch colors, that the current tool leaves untouched.

Large selections feel slow

Turn Live Preview off, make the adjustment, and preview only when needed. The panel can pause automatic preview on very large selections to keep Illustrator responsive.

Appearance edits or discard do not match

End the active preview before restructuring, expanding, or replacing the selected artwork. If a repeatable document still restores incorrectly, save a copy and send the smallest sample file that reproduces it.

After an Illustrator crash: relaunch Illustrator and reopen the document. Do not rely on an unfinished preview session as a saved document state.

License

One personal license covers one person using HueLumino on up to two Macs they own or control.

One-time purchasePay once. There is no subscription or recurring charge.
All Version 1.x updatesVersion 1 feature updates, bug fixes, and compatibility updates for the supported Illustrator range are included.
Optional major upgradesA future major version may have an upgrade price. Your Version 1 license does not expire if you skip it.
Two personal MacsInstall the plugin on a laptop and a studio Mac as long as the same person uses both.
One user per licenseTeams cannot share one personal license between several people.

Team licensing

Send me the number of people who need access and I will prepare a multi-seat quote.

Ask about team licensing

Report a bug

A focused report is the fastest way to reproduce and fix a problem. The email button opens a prefilled checklist once a support address is configured.

Illustrator version and macOS version
HueLumino version (currently 1.0.0)
Exact steps to reproduce
Expected and observed result
Approximate target count and artwork type
A screenshot or reduced sample file, when safe to share

Email bugs@your-domain.com