Tutorial: Making halftone dots

posted by Liz

Dots are very simple shapes, but it's not obvious how to easily create a pattern or repetition of them in Photoshop. So here's one easy way to use dots as texture without drawing them each by hand.

1. Create a new document and select the Gradient tool. Switch the document to Quick Mask mode. (See circled tools.) Drag the Gradient tool across the document in whatever direction you'd like the dots to flow. Should look something like this:



2. In the Filter menu, go to Pixelate > Color Halftone to open a dialogue box. You can choose the max. radius of the dots by changing the pixel number at the top. A smaller number will make lots of little dots and vice versa. My example uses 15.





3. Click the Quick Mask tool again to switch back to standard mode. Now you can fill in the selection with a foreground color of your choice either by pressing Option+Delete or by going to Edit > Fill.





4. Before deselecting, if you would like to fill the white space with a second color, select the inverse either from the Select menu or with Command+Shift+I.



Here's an example. This is a thumbnail from one of the elixir desktops. I cut circles out of the halftone dot pattern instead of leaving it to fill the background, but you can see how they add to the illustration.



There are other ways to implement the color halftone filter, but I just thought I'd share one easy way to make a halftone pattern.