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What is Halftone?

There are techniques that are used in screen printing over and over again. Halftone is one of those techniques. You need to add this technique to your repertoire. You will get a lot of use out of it. It goes great on retro t-shirts.

Halftone is one of the oldest printing techniques in the world. It was the choice of Roy Lichtenstein in the 1960's to use halftones as his main printing technique which propelled him to stardom in the art world. 

To put it bluntly, halftone is important.

What is halftone?

A halftone is created by reproducing an image using different shades of gray but only using various sizes of dots. The concept is sometimes confusing as most of the dots are created with halftone dots that are arranged in rows and lines. The difference is the size of the dots. Having different sizes of dots creates different shades of gray. The dots are controlled by screen frequency. 

Screen Frequency refers to the number of lines per inch on the screen. The screen frequency does not change throughout the image, however it can change in different images.

Sometimes the dots can get so big that they bleed into each other. The dots disappear and you have solid images. This usually depends on what type of substrate you are working on. The paper may be prone to bleeding easily, which is why halftone dots appear so close together.

Why are halftones important?

They are used to create stunning images. The artwork looks very retro. When an artist wants to have an image that looks as if it were printed in the 50’s they turn to halftone. It really makes quite an impact. Most people don’t even realize that they are looking at halftones when they see it. 

How to make halftone in photoshop?

You can create a halftone image easily in Photoshop. We’ll show you how to create a halftone in photoshop. This is a simple technique. Open up Photoshop and let’s get started.

    1. Open the image that you want to create a halftone with. 
    2. Go to Filter > Filter Gallery
    3. Navigate to the Sketch folder and find the halftone pattern.
    4. Adjust The Size, Contrast, and Pattern Type. Then press ok.
    5. Then add a threshold adjustment layer to adjust the output of your image.

 The Final Word on Halftone Images 

There are other methods for creating halftone images in Photoshop. You can even create them in illustrator as well. This method is simple and quick.  You may want to find a more advanced method with better detail. When you are looking for a cool effect that doesn’t take a lot to create, this is it. This method can be what sets off your image.  

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