halftone.markdown

layout	title	permalink	parent
page	Halftone Tutorial	/halftone/	Portfolio

Halftone Tutorial

Color printing frequently uses fewer colors of ink than there are colors in the source image. Halftones are often used to fool the eye into seeing a broader range of colors. Similar to shading in drawing, halftones create the appearance of varying tones by varying the size of dots or lines of ink.

For most of us, this is a historical curiousity or an obscure technical detail, but Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein celebrated the lowly halftone by making the dots large. With the advent of PhotoShop, it became possible for someone without specialized equipment to experiment with halftones and various other special effects in persuit of cool images and techniques.

My company logo was one result of my experimentation with image filters. I've recreated my logo using Gimp so anyone can play along without expensive software.

The logo is generated algorithmically without drawing a thing.

1. | Fill a square canvas with light gray | {: width='100'} |

2. | Convert the light gray to dots using the "Newsprint" filter | {: width='100'} |

3. | Use the "Spherize" filter to create the Op Art illusion of depth | {: width='100'} |

4. | Use a circular selection inverted to remove the background from the sphere | {: width='100'} |

5. | Adjust the color, size, and format of the image for its intended use | {: width='100'} |

There is plenty of fun to be had starting from solid colors, gradients, or noise and applying various distortion filters.

{: width='100'} {: width='100'} {: width='100'} {: width='100'} {: width='100'} {: width='100'}