halftone?

[pedter]

I'm a noob, i'll admit it. I love Adobe products and am pretty proficiant at most of them. However illustrator is still fresh to me.

What i'm trying to do is help a friend of mine out. below is his logo and the designer didnt give him any original files. I'm trying to help re-create at least his main logo and have always had trouble with Color Halftone in Photoshop and Illustrator.

As a NAPP mamber, I have searched and read through the TuT's on the site but still haven't gotten a good feel for how to get the result in the attached file (1st image). Notice the smooth taper away from the image and the uniform distance from the lettering.

I have the rest of the logo done and a poor example of the halftone (image 2)

Any assistance would be greatly appriciated.

thanks!

[The Repro Kid]

I don't really have a lot of experience with that color Halftone filter either, but I can tell you _a lot_ about real halftones.

What's happening in the halftone you are trying to re-create and what's not happening with yours is that the background halftone is gradating very quickly from 95% or more behind the lettering to 20% or less on the edges. Your background should be a gradient before applying the Halftone filter. Also the background is conforming to and probably based on an outline thickness of the type. The one you created appears to be one consistent tone, which is why the dot shape is not varying, and it appears as though it is not an outline shape of the lettering. After getting a good gradient, you can then experiment with the line screen value to make the dots the correct size. The line screen value looks to be too high on your example to get the correct size dot. Experimenting with different gradients and different line screen values should eventually yield something similar to the orig.

[pedter]

I'll give it a try, and report back. thanks!

[pedter]

well this is better, but the dots still arent right and the change from the larger dots to the small edge dots is still not quite right.

[The Repro Kid]

It looks like now you are on the right track.

The lower your line screen value, the larger the dots will be. 100 lpi = small dots, 20 lpi = large dots. LPI is Lines Per Inch, a line being a row of dots. At 20 rows of dots per inch the dots will be much larger than they would be a 100 rows of dots per inch.

This is definitely a Hit and Miss process that will involve several experiments before you hone in on a reasonable facsimile. In this process it will probably be easier to find the correct LPI for the size of the dots, than it will be to recreate the gradient used for the effect.

I wouldn't give up just yet.

Also, since the gradient radiates all around the edges of type, not just from top to bottom, the gradient is probably created by blurring a solid, not by filling with gradient.

[pedter]

thanks again, I'll give it another go tonight and post my next attempt.

[pedter]

The lower your line screen value, the larger the dots will be. 100 lpi = small dots, 20 lpi = large dots. LPI is Lines Per Inch, a line being a row of dots. At 20 rows of dots per inch the dots will be much larger than they would be a 100 rows of dots per inch.

I guess im confused as to what you mean here. I'm using the Halftone Pattern in Illustrator. Am I using the correct effect? (See below)

[GuyB]

Hi pedter,

Here is a good tutorial to make exactly what you want but it's in Photoshop !

http://www.bluesfear.com/tutorials/dots.php

[Lukas Engqvist]

Just a small observation. The halftone filter is following the shape of the letters implying that they are following a drop shadow of the text. The smaller dotts on the edge because the shadow fades to white. There are so many ways to do the effect your way is a as good as any. Just play with the sliders till you are happy :)

[Lukas Engqvist]

As I said many ways to get job done… all ways to rome ;P

[The Repro Kid]

Just a thought for pedter, Outer glow is Drop shadow, with a couple of changes in options, i.e. screen instead of multiply, white instead of black, no offset as opposed to offset. They are actually the same exact effect with only the parameters changed.

This is why I think schools should teach a few of the "classic" photoshop effects before teaching filters, so they can grasp the concept and realize when something like Outer Glow really the same as Drop shadow.

We haven't seen the finished product, pedter, did you ever get one to work?

[pedter]

well with all of your help I believe I have an acceptable result.

What I did was:
1. copy the text
2. fill with black
3. 10pt black stroke (so it was curvy)
4. expand appearence
5. add to shape area (expand)
6. blur (10pt)
7. color halftone (15, 45, 45, 45, 45)
8. added a 9pt white stroke (for some reason this allowd the color halftone to appear) (this leads to another question, for later though)
9. rasterize, live trace, expand
10. change color of the dots

viola! (mine is the one on the right)

thank you all for your help again!

[The Repro Kid]

Dang slick, well done! I can see a slight "fuzz" around your dots. Run a threshold filter on your dots to remove the fuzz and complete the art.

[pedter]

it's a yellow stroke. I meant for it to be there :)

I reduced it a little and also cleand up a few other little things.

Not bad for a reproduction I think (and an in experienced illustrator)

thanks again all.

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

Over at your Forum thread at Illustrator Techniques I posted a link to a tutorial I just refound that covers Halftones in Illustrator may be of some use.

Go check out your post there.

Gary.

[Lukas Engqvist]

Well done, what's the next project u'll share with us ? ;P

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

I tried playing a bit with Offset paths and was getting somewhere with this. Making thicker strokes and setting stroke to inner position might work. I gave up after trying a few methods that seemed to be starting to get somewhere.

Pedter can you explain a bit more about what you did in the detailed explanation? When you copied the text did you paste in back (front)? Would you care to be more specific and instruct us more on this as it does look like you got it down well.

Thanks,

Gary.

[pedter]

Pedter can you explain a bit more about what you did in the detailed explanation? When you copied the text did you paste in back (front)? Would you care to be more specific and instruct us more on this as it does look like you got it down well.


Sure.

Step1.

Select the object you are looking to make the halftone pattern out of. (First Picture)

Step 2.

Fill the object with black, then, if the object has inner fills, or is a compound path(release them), make sure you use the pathfinders pallette and select the fist option (Add to shape Area). (second picture)

Step 3.

Add a stroke making sure to align the stroke to the outside, and round join. I used a 12pt stroke. Next be sure to expand appearance from the Object menu and then from the pathfinders pallette select trim (bottom row) you should have something like the third picture.

Step 4.

Goto Effect, Pixelate, Color Halftone and enter 15 for the radius (this affects dot size) then enter 45 for the channels (fourth picture) then apply a white stroke to the object, I chose 15pt (side note, if you want a greater size difference of your dots, you can choose a 5% gray instead of white) (picture five)

Continued....

[pedter]

Continued...

Step 5.

Select rasterize from the options menu. Then live trace from the control bar. you can select whatever settings you want but i used the settings in picture 1.

Step 6.

After you apply the settings click expand, again, in the control bar.
(if you selected the "ignore white" option in the tracing options dialoge box, you can ignore the next step)

Step 7.

You need to remove the white from the trace, so now ungroup your object from the object menu. Select the white portion and then go to "Select" then to "same" and finally to Fill and stroke from the select menu. Delete the white. Regroup the back dots.

Step 8.

Color the dots the color you choose (picture 2)

Step 9.

Move the complete document into place and show it off. (picture 3)

Hope this helps!

[The Repro Kid]

Kick ass! damn straight.

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Much appreciated.

Gary.

Peter, I tried this and had fun with it. I got the basic effect (need to play and tweak it to really get it down) but that white stroke really does make the difference. I hope others enjoy this as it is a really neat effect. In the final description you have: Ensure that you make a copy of the text to lay on top after you have done the retro dots (you mention that in the first posting with a detailed description) and you have make live paint (in error instead of trace) in the text on that step. Other than that - anyone reasonably familiar with Illustrator should be able to do what you have shown us.

[pedter]

No problem, I'm just glad I figured it out :)

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

Flexibility in retrodots. Peter and all interested. I have your technique down quite well and getting some nice retro-dots. I tried one where I offset the stroke and ended up with a bit of a "sparkle" effect. See attached. So again, a lot of flexibility in your method.

I'd like to get bigger dots but not sure how to set the parameters for that above setting a grey color like you suggested. Like most things though experimentation will give a lot of cool effects and end results. You started me off on a roll again here.

[pedter]

The dot size I was referencing is related to the white stroke. And that is the number that determines the scale from the big dots to the small ones.

If you just want a bigger dot to start out from, when you are applying the color halftone filter, use a larger number, say 30 or 35 for the “max radius” option.

hope that makes sense. if not let me know and I can post some screen shots to better demonstrate.

[The Repro Kid]

Well now that you've figured it out it all makes sense to me now ;)

When you make each angle equal, then the dots all stack up on each other. That's how you change the angle as well, because you can make them all 67, or all 22.

This is cool because this is something I can use at the shop.

Thanks.

The extra added step of Live Tracing it is also very cool. Again, something I can use at the shop.

[pedter]

I think it is a cool effect and I believe it can be used in many different applications.

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

Revisiting this. I did not scan back through all the replies but I just found a wonderful (Don't know why Scott did not answer this one himself here) tutorial on halftones with some neat twists (for beginners especially):http://www.weichertcreative.com/tutorials/halftone.php.

You only need do a template once and can then use that to scale down the dots, recolor individual ones etc. Very versatile and a neat little action to boot!

Check it out.

[pedter]

Revisiting this. I did not scan back through all the replies but I just found a wonderful (Don't know why Scott did not answer this one himself here) tutorial on halftones with some neat twists (for beginners especially):http://www.weichertcreative.com/tutorials/halftone.php.

You only need do a template once and can then use that to scale down the dots, recolor individual ones etc. Very versatile and a neat little action to boot!

Check it out.

Very interesting, but not ecaxtly what I was looking to do here. the Scott version, although cool, doesnty have the taper I was looking for in my job.

I bookmarked it anyway :)

[undying]

BTW does anybody know the name of the font in the attached images (first post) ?

[pedter]

BTW does anybody know the name of the font in the attached images (first post) ?


Rosewood Regular (and fill)

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/rosewood/

[Scott Weichert]

Didn't reply because I didn't know this was here. :)

My technique does give more of a pattern fill than a drop off to nothing. I probably would have worked it out pretty much the same way pedter did. Nice job!

[alcbevtesting@alltel.net]

But both approaches provide for a wealth of opportunity. This has been a good Forum thread. More like 'em.

Thanks all.

Gary.