What Is a Halftone Effect?
Halftone is a printing technique developed in the 20th century, using spaced-out dots on printing plates to transfer ink without saturating the paper, a common risk in full-tone printing.
Besides printing, halftone adds shade and texture to illustrations. It was popular among pop artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol in the 1960s and is commonly found in traditional comic books. You can recreate this pop art halftone portrait effect in Photoshop to enhance your photos.
How to Create a Halftone Pattern in Adobe Illustrator
Here’s how you can make a halftone pattern, adding depth and dimension to your otherwise flat vector illustrations. This technique can also be explored in Photoshop for your digital artwork.
Note that the halftone effect in Illustrator produces CMYK color results, which differs from the halftone pattern detailed here, though the same tool is used.
Step 1: Make a New Document
Starting with the right document size is crucial. If your canvas or graphic is too large, the halftone dots may not appear effectively. Begin with a New Document in Adobe Illustrator, setting the size to 500w x 200h.
For digital projects, set the color mode to RGB with a PPI of 72. For printed materials, opt for CMYK mode with a PPI of 300.
While these color modes can’t be changed in some software like Procreate, Adobe allows easy adjustments later, so the initial choice isn’t critical.
Select Create to open your new document.
Step 2: Create an Ellipse Shape
Use the Ellipse tool (L) to draw a circle, holding Shift to ensure a perfect shape.
Remove the Stroke in the Stroke swatch by setting the swatch with a red line across it. Change the Fill swatch to Gradient, found below the Fill and Stroke swatches.
Step 3: Add a Radial Gradient
Open the Gradient tool window via Window > Gradient. Change the circle’s gradient from the default linear to radial.
Invert the colors by sliding the white circle on the Gradient slider to the right and the black circle to the left, past the white one. Adjust the slider’s diamond towards the white circle to spread the black further through the gradient. These darker sections will result in larger, more prominent dots in the halftone pattern.
Step 4: Add the Halftone Effect
To apply the halftone effect, go to Effect > Pixelate > Color Halftone.
Adjust the radius settings to suit your needs—Max. Radius dictates the largest dot size. For a 200 x 500 document, a radius of 5 works well; larger areas might need a larger radius.
Set all Screen Angle channels to the same number, like 90 or 45 degrees, determining the angle and pattern of dots.
Click OK to apply the halftone effect to your gradient.
How to Color an Illustration With Halftone
You can add a halftone effect directly to an illustration, either as color or as shading and texture over existing colors.
Open your graphic and select the area for the halftone effect. To use halftone as extra texture or shading, duplicate the area by copying (Cmd + C or Ctrl + C) and pasting it in place (Cmd + F or Ctrl + F). For using halftone as the sole color, duplication isn’t necessary.
Repeat the initial halftone steps, but apply them to your chosen illustration element instead of an Ellipse shape.
Experiment with different halftone sizes and gradient patterns to achieve varied results. You can even use Adobe Firefly’s vector recoloring tool for more creativity.
Add Halftone Effects to Your Illustrator Projects
Incorporating halftone in your illustrations enriches them with depth and texture. It’s an excellent method for shading or coloring illustrations while keeping them in vector format.
Explore various sizes, channel angles, and color overlaps to create distinctive, retro-styled results. Have fun experimenting with the potential styles halftone effects can offer.