Vector Halftone in Illustrator
By Cory • Jan 30th, 2008 • Category: Tutorials & Tips|
Below is a tutorial I’ve written for creating a vector halftone in Adobe Illustrator. I also have a halftone tutorial for Photoshop here. I start by making a linear gradient that fades from black to white. |
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Next, I rasterize my gradient. Go to Object > Rasterize. |
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A dialogue box pops up. Since I’m just going to use this object to trace over, I select 72 dpi. |
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With my rasterized gradient selected, I go to Filter > Pixelate > Color Halftone. |
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A dialogue box will appear. Set the Max. Radius to 10 or another number. The lower the number, the smaller the dots. I kept my Screen Angles at 0, so my dot pattern wasn’t at an angle (this makes it easier to trace). |
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Here’s what my pattern looks like. Now it is time to trace. |
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I draw two red circles. One over the biggest dot on the end and another one on the smallest dot on the other end. Using the Align palette, I center align my dots vertically. |
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Next, I want to do a blend. Go to Object > Blend > Blend Options to set up your blend options. |
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A dialogue box will pop up. Set your Spacing to Specified Steps. The number of steps should be the number of black dots between your two red dots. I counted mine and had 22 dots. |
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Now you need to run the blend, so make sure your two red dots are selected. Go to Object > Blend > Make. |
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The blend creates several new dots between the two. |
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Since the blend creates a line of dots and not actual shapes, you’ll need to Flatten Transparency to convert them into shapes. Go to Object > Flatten Transparency. |
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A dialogue box will appear. Set the Raster/Vector balance to 100 and click OK. |
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Now your red dots are shapes. |
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Next, you’ll need to copy this row. Select all the dots and hold down the Option/Alt key and drag the dots down to line up with the next row. |
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You can repeat the copy you just made by going to Object >Transform > Transform Again or by using the keyboard shortcut for it: Command/Control D. |
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Keep hitting Command/Control D until you get to the bottom. Then, delete the raster dot pattern. Now, you have a vector halftone. |
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This post was written on IllustrationInfo.com. Content copyright 2008 Cory Thoman.
Technorati Tags: Vector, Halftone, Dots, Illustrator, Tutorial, Adobe
hi! thanks for the tutorial, i hace a question for you: the effect works with type too??
Thanks
Carpe diem!
Ed!
Yes. I think you could do it with text. Just type your text, create outlines on it and add a gradient. Then follow the steps in the tutorial. Or this might be a little easier and quicker…
You could take the above pattern and use the Pathfinder palette to unite it as one shape. Then take your outlined text and unite that as one shape. Finally select both shapes and use the intersect pathfinder on them.
That would probably be the quickest way.-Cory
thanks so much!!! cory
I added a tutorial for halftone text:
http://illustrationinfo.com/?p=64
Nice tut. Seems to be the same type tutorial you find elsewheres. Not that theres anything wrong with it.
I found a few posts that link to http://vectorstock.com/gallery/1078/ and they are circular.
How is this done? Live trace isnt making circles circular no matter how good the reso is. Im stumped.
Again… neat tut!
Tim, I’ve never been able to get the autotrace to draw a perfect circle, so I use the circle tool. It takes longer, but it looks better. -Cory
Hello webmaster , Your blog post about photoshop vector is absolutely great. Easy to understand it and with excellent value. I just stumbled up and dugg your site to digg as good news article about photoshop vector on Wednesday . Cheers, Mike Brown , keep up the good work !
This seems like a lot of work to go through to manually create a simple halftone. And it leaves you hanging for more complex shapes, and gradients. I figured out another method that is super easy to use. I’ve posted it on my site. Hope you find it useful.
Jac, Thanks for posting your tutorial. As I was telling Tim above, the problem using Live Trace is that you get distorted circles. Using the Blend tool takes a little longer, but the circles are perfectly round. Also, you can use other shapes that aren’t circles (maybe halftone hearts or shamrocks). I have tutorial with stars for that here.
Funny,
I was walking to my mailbox today and thinking about using patterns for a halftone pattern and thinking to myself that your tutorial would be the perfect way to do it.
As for the distorted circles I prefer it to look a little more rough, but your method would be preferable when making super clean logos, something I haven’t really considered halftones for.
anyone know how to make the halftone pattern outword, like you see on “blurry” text on t-shirts? Everything I find only shows how to make the inner paths filled with the pattern. Thanks!
You should try Vectoraster, it’s a tool specifically designed to make vector halftone effects. You can use circular points or a bunch of other shapes, line rasters and more…
http://www.lostminds.com/content/vectoraster-main.shtml
Yeah! Great man! Thank you so much!!!
Hi
Have a question i and can not find the answer
1.Halftone is an image created from a photograph and is comprised of a pattern of tiny dots.
2.Halftone is an illustration made up of distinct black and white areas .
1.Both are right ?
2.Number 1 is right
3.Number 2 is right
4.Non of the statments are right
Thanks
Despite what people may or may not say about me, I’m not a walking encyclopedia. Luckily, there is wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone
I hope that helps.
-Cory
Hi Cory,
Is there a way to fit this to a path. Now that I have my circles down, can you make them simulate a wave pattern I have seen an image on Istock.
http://www.istockphoto.com -> ID # 9990545
Jess
Jess,
I didn’t have a way off the top of my head. I did a little test with creating a pattern brush, but I couldn’t get it from distorting. I did buy a program a couple months ago that works pretty well for creating halftones, so you may want to give that a shot:
http://illustrationinfo.com/?p=226
I hope that helps.
Thanks so much for this. I’ve been using CorelDraw for years and can create a blend in that program, but was clueless how to do it in Illustrator. Very helpful.