PVD INDUSTRIAL

Learn how to make custom halftone styled stain brushes in just six quick-n-dirty steps. No hands on craft projects necessary. No paint, no mesh screens, no scanning required. This tutorial utilizes tools and filters standard in Photoshop and teaches you the bare-bones basics of how to automatically generate unique halftone patterns every time. The steps below require virtually no user input, so this tutorial is an excellent candidate for a Photoshop action button, and can be recorded from start to finish.

1. New Document

Start fresh with a new photoshop document. Use the key command ⌘+N to open the New Document window. Set your document size to 20in x 15in at 72 pixels/inch, with a white background and select “Grayscale” for your colour mode. (Of course, the size and resolution of your document are completely up to you, but at this image size we wind up with a brush that’s about 1300px wide. Which is big, but not huge. And of course, as of Photoshop CS3, the maximum brush size is 2500px.)

2. Feathered Mask

Select the Rectangular Marquee tool with ⌘+M and set the Feather radius to 36px in the option bar. Now drag to select an 18in x 13in rectangle in the centre of you document. (This can also be accomplished by setting your Marquee Style to “Fixed Size” on the option bar.) This feathered selection limits where the halftone will render, and keeps stray dots from getting cropped at the edge of the document, which can cause your brush to look boxy. A higher pixel radius makes for smoother transitions to the edge, but require you to select a smaller internal area.

3. Random Clouds!

Keeping the feathered rectangle area selected, its time to render some wicked sweet clouds in there. Reset to the default colours with key command D then navigate to Filter > Render > Clouds to generate some totally random grayscale clouds. It’s important that you get a good rendering here, because it’s the basis for your halftone. If you don’t like what you see, make sure you clear the clouds first with ⌘+Z and then render a new set with ⌘+F until you’re in love with it. After you get a set of clouds with enough variation, use ⌘+D to deselect your box.

4. Increase Contrast

The contrast in you source image is going to determine how broken up your halftone will look when its finished. It’s a good idea at this point to increase the contrast in your image, and limit the shadow range. This keeps your final halftone from having too many solid black patches, or stray dots at the brush edge. Using Curves ⌘+M, adjust the two points in the gray channel. To start, set the dark point to “Input:90 Output:90″ and the light point to “Input:15 Output:0″ to keep it safe, but don’t hesitate to adjust these numbers to your liking. Darker clouds mean more more and bigger dots, while lighter clouds result in fewer and smaller dots. As a rule of thumb, keep your darkest output below 100, and your lightest output at 0 to maintain the broken up halftone effect.

5. Bitmappit

Here’s the trick. Convert your grayscale clouds to Bitmap image mode using Image > Mode > Bitmap... and set your options with the dialogue boxes. First, you want to keep the output resolution the same at 72 pixels/inch and make sure to select Halftone Screen... as your Method from the drop down box. The next option window is asking what kind of screen to make. Set the frequency somewhere between 5 and 15. (Lower frequency means bigger dots, which is better for this style. However it all depends on the effect you’re trying to achieve and ultimately, the image size and resolution.) The angle should be something random, maybe in the range of 11.25° to 33.75° or so. (Ya know… approximately.) Avoid numbers like 0°, 15°, or 45° which will make your halftone look static. Finally, you should set the halftone shape (from a list of many suitable options) to “Round” and hit OK to render that sweet lookin’ bitmap version of your clouds.

6. Make the brush!

If you like what you see, convert the image back to grayscale with Image > Mode > Grayscale and use Image > Trim to clear any empty white space from the edges. Now the last and most important step in making a brush is to use the define brush menu option found under Edit > Define Brush Preset and gib ihr einen namen!

Moving On…

This tutorial teaches the basics of how to get random halftones without any source photographs or other media. Brushes generated this way can also make great vector halftones using Illustrator’s Live Trace. This technique can also be used with gradients to make swanky halftone edges and borders. Not to mention, it’s really easy to use this method to make halftone distressed text and graphics (like the title image) when applied to layer masks. The combination of the cloud filter and the halftone image mode can be used countless different ways to break up static images and add texture. Its cheap and its easy, and now you know how to do it. So go nuts.