Everyone wants to know how I do my halftones and textures, So I put this together to show everyone. I tried doing a video, but it was nothing but problems (I wish I had a mac) anyway...
To start, open a new document in photoshop, I normally work with these settings:
- Width: 13
- Height: 20
- DPI: 300
- RGB color
I’m going to go ahead and use some simple text. sketch out the area you’d like to have the text in, it doesn’t need to be exact or anything, think of the sketching as more of a guideline than a detailed approach to your text. make sure and use a light color so that when you go over it with black it’s easy to tell what’s a sketch and what isn’t.
Now create a new layer and draw out your text in black, I went for a simple scratchy feel, lots of quick strokes that i go over a few times to fill everything in.
Once you have all the black figured out, duplicate this layer and fill it with white (make sure you have it set to preserve transparency so you don’t fill the whole page white).
Now go to the black text layer and select Edit > Stroke. I like to use these settings when I’m in a 300 dpi document, you can experiment to find what you like best.
This is what it should look like once the stroke has been applied.
Now we will duplicate each layer, we want the original white text layer to be a base color eventually, so always try to leave original shapes intact. use the duplicate of the black text to create a shadow, move it to where you’d like it and turn the layer opacity down to your liking.
Now lock the top white layer, set the layer mode to multiply and turn the opacity down to around 30%.
Using black, draw in a shadow along the bottom. try not to make it too much of a straight line because it ends up taking a lot of depth away by doing so.
OK, now I’ve jumped ahead a bit. I’ll explain:
Duplicate the white layer again, lock it and give it a linear gradient from top to bottom, make sure the darker portion of the gradient starts at the top. Unless you want to keep the gradient a separate color from the shading (I sometimes like to) merge this layer with the layer that contains the shading along the bottom of the text.
I’ve also added a second stroke to the black layer (to thicken the outline). I then put a white stroke on the white text base layer.
Now comes the fun part! Open a new document that is the exact same size as the current document. this will be used to create all your halftones while avoiding setting your entire piece to bitmap and being forced to flatten it.
Now that we have the new document, drag the shading layer over to the document.
Select Image > Mode > Grayscale. It will ask you if you want to flatten the image, flatten it.
Select Image > Mode > Bitmap. Make sure you dpi matches the dpi of your image or it will resize the image after the halftone is applied.
Under method select halftone screen. Click OK and another menu will come up.
Set the frequency to 50.
Set the angle to 56 (I’ve found this is a good angle that doesn’t mess up when printed, only use things such as 45 degrees for things that will be the shirt color when printed).
Set the shape to round.
Click OK voila! A halftone!
Now (still in the halftone creation document) select Image > Mode > Grayscale.
Select the black with the magic wand (you’ll probably want to zoom in to be accurate) and go to Select > Similar.
Now drag the selection to your original document and line up your new halftone with the shading. Turn off the un-halftoned shading layer once you have everything lined up (you’ll want to save this incase you don’t like the way the halftone looks, you can redo the halftone process later with it).
Now do the same process for all the other layers (including the white! the trick is to place the white on a black background instead and after you’ve set your halftone on it, select the white and drag it back).
If you don’t do this to every layer that’s printed it can look weird because some things will be antialiased and some things won’t.
MAKE SURE YOU DON’T DELETE ANY OF YOUR ORIGINAL LAYERS SO THAT YOU CAN USE THEM LATER IF NEEDED!
TADA! Everything’s a halftone!
Now start playing with colors on all your layers! if two of the layers have similar colors, merge them together!
After merging all your similar colors you’ll have a certain amount of colors, don’t forget to color in the background as well(this will be the shirt color).
I ended up with 2 colors on a brown shirt.
Now comes texture! I search google for textures, I’m not worried about copyright infringement because the texture will become COMPLETELY unrecognizable in the final product.
Make sure it’s something that has a lot of contrast involved.
I’ve saved one of my favorite ones, so I just opened it from where I had it saved, then dragged the image in to the halftone document. You can just find a texture online and drag it in to your halftone document straight from the internet, resize it so it takes up all the space you have in the document.
If the texture doesn’t already have a lot of contrast, play with brightness/contrast to create some.
Turn down the layer opacity on this layer till it’s very light.
Now create a halftone of the texture only this time:
- Frequency: 30 or less
- Angle: anything other than the angles you’ve already used (i like to use 45 for textures)
- Shape: round
After you’ve got your halftone, select the black and drag it to your original document.
Now you have a choice to make ...
If you want the piece to look distressed
cntrl+click the texture layer. Select every other layer (this doesn’t include the background) and press delete.
(I sometimes repeat this 2 or 3 times with the texture in different positions to lighten the piece even more).
Delete your texture layer.
If you want a grunged up look
cntrl+click every layer (this doesn’t inlude the background).
Go to Sselect > Inverse.
Select the texture layer and press delete. now color the texture in a darker color that’s being used for the linework.
I went with the grunge look and wasn’t happy with it, i wanted more to it, so I returned to the halftone document, pressed cntrl+alt+z a few times to get to where I was before the halftone, turned the layer opacity up a bit, then repeated my halftone at a different frequency and angle (but still slightly similar settings) and repeated the steps for creating the grunge effect.
This is what it will look like with the grunge effect! this is a two color print.
Zoomed in to show halftones.
I love the way these turn out printed, your clients will love that you are color separating as a part of your artwork as well! ok, let’s see what you guys make out of this :D post your results!