How the halftone effect works
The tool lays a regular grid over your photo, rotated by the screen angle. At the center of each grid cell it measures how dark the image is, then draws one round dot in the ink color: the darker the spot, the larger the dot. The dot’s area grows with the darkness, which is how printed halftones reproduce tones, and in the darkest areas neighboring dots slightly overlap so shadows come out solid. Very light areas get no dot at all and show the paper color.
The output keeps the same width and height in pixels as your image, and it is always saved as a PNG so the dot edges stay crisp.
Choosing the settings
| Setting | Range | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Dot size | 4–40 px (default 10) | Spacing of the dots. Small values keep detail; large values give a bold pop-art pattern. |
| Screen angle | 0–90° (default 45°) | Rotation of the dot grid. 0° gives straight rows; 45° is the classic print angle. |
| Ink color | any (default near-black) | Color of the dots. |
| Paper color | any (default white) | Background color between the dots. |
Pick the dot size relative to the image size. On a 4000-pixel-wide photo, a 10 px dot gives a fine, newspaper-like texture that you only notice up close; on a 600-pixel image, the same dot size is clearly visible. For a comic or poster style, go for 20 px or more.
Ideas for halftone images
- Pop art: bright ink on a contrasting paper, such as magenta on yellow, with a large dot size.
- Vintage newspaper: dark gray ink on an off-white paper and a small dot size.
- Inverted look: white ink on black paper for a night or neon style.
- Cleaner shapes: strong contrast helps. Simplify the tones first with Posterize Image or convert with the high-contrast style of Black and White Photo, then apply the halftone.
- Retro game look: for square pixels instead of round dots, use Image to Pixel Art.
Formats
You can open JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF (first frame), BMP and SVG files, plus iPhone HEIC photos. This tool works on one image at a time, and the result is always a PNG. Transparent areas are filled with the paper color. Since the pattern is made of flat ink and paper colors, the PNG usually stays compact and prints cleanly at its native size.
Privacy
There is no upload step. Your browser reads the file and draws the dots on a canvas locally; the site’s security policy only lets the page talk to its own server. The PNG is rebuilt from scratch, so EXIF metadata such as GPS location and camera model is not included.