Page 1 of 1

Halftone Print

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2026 1:20 pm
by J. Baker
Doing some halftone test. Those not familiar, old comics use to print in this style to save on ink. Can not say my current test is 100% but just adding the effect and see how far I want to go with this. Cool effect.

Image

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2026 1:54 pm
by synthsin75
I love effect in the gradients. The flat tones seem a little off. Maybe the size of the halftone? Not sure.
Are you using blend modes to add this effect?

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2026 6:57 pm
by DK
Hey J.Baker!
How did you get the halftone effect in Moho?
Cheers
D.K

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2026 7:20 pm
by J. Baker
I created an image in PureBasic that is basically vector dots. I use the image as a mask along with blending methods and minor blur effects. Here's another image. Maybe tomorrow I will create a zip file containing all this if anyone is interested.

Image

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2026 9:48 pm
by synthsin75
I think on some of these the halftone is too small to give the vintage print look.
Granted, print was never at 1080p.

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2026 2:20 am
by slowtiger
That's good enough for a single scene IMHO, but a "real" half-tone would have 4 colour channels with tilted orientation in each ...

If you aim for a a "moving print" look, that's possibly best done in some specialized plug-in in a compositing program. (I'm quite sure they used that workflow in the "Spiderverse" films.)

I'm a sucker for all enlarged textures myself, be it film grain, printing artifacts, scratches, paper textures, and so on, but despite experimenting with that for years I've never been really satisfied with any digital simulation of it. Best was always something scanned in - the real stuff.

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2026 2:23 am
by hayasidist
J. Baker wrote: Wed Jun 17, 2026 7:20 pm I created an image in PureBasic that is basically vector dots. I use the image as a mask along with blending methods and minor blur effects. Here's another image. Maybe tomorrow I will create a zip file containing all this if anyone is interested.
yes - interested

I did a preliminary version of something similar a few months ago using a moho brush (created using moho) for the dots
https://discord.com/channels/1123979330 ... 0753162281

still much more to do to make it really work (Slowtiger's comments noted!) but it's not a pressing priority for me right now.

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2026 5:33 am
by J. Baker
slowtiger wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2026 2:20 am If you aim for a a "moving print" look, that's possibly best done in some specialized plug-in in a compositing program.
Here's some video for you. But yeah, true halftone would use CMYK and tilted at angles. I may try that next.



hayasidist wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2026 2:23 am I did a preliminary version of something similar a few months ago using a moho brush (created using moho) for the dots
https://discord.com/channels/1123979330 ... 0753162281
Yeah, I originally tried using the brushes but only looked good with straight lines. Be nice if the brushes could brush in a tiled format and not overlap. Kind of like a stamp function.

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2026 6:15 am
by synthsin75
Just tried to see if a grid with blur could be used as a halftone. The result causes a weird visual illusion. This is a PNG.
Image

Re: Halftone Print

Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2026 9:40 am
by J. Baker
I almost got true CMYK Halftone! Just got to do some adjustments. A little more time. :D