Halftone converts continuous-tone images into dot patterns. Larger dots represent dark areas, smaller dots represent light areas — simulating the printing technique used in newspapers and magazines since the 1880s. Today halftone is widely used for posters, zines, album art, screen printing and retro-inspired graphic design.
Circular dots are the classic halftone look — round dots that grow and shrink with image brightness. Line screen uses horizontal lines of varying thickness, popular in engraving-style prints. Diamond creates a rotated square grid for a modern geometric look. Cross hatch overlaps horizontal and vertical bars. Square grid uses rectangular blocks for a pixel-art hybrid aesthetic.
Halftone patterns are essential for screen printing, risograph printing and letterpress. A higher dot frequency (smaller dot size) creates smoother gradients, while larger dots give a bold, graphic look. Adjusting the screen angle prevents moire patterns when printing multiple color separations.
Both halftone and dithering reduce images to limited tones, but they work differently. Halftone uses varying dot sizes on a regular grid — larger dots for dark areas, smaller for light. Dithering uses fixed-size pixels arranged in error-diffusion or ordered patterns. Halftone is the standard for print reproduction, while dithering is more common in digital and retro pixel art. Try both and see which fits your project.
Pro users can export halftone patterns as SVG vector files — perfect for screen printing, laser cutting and large-format printing. Every dot becomes a real vector shape (circle, square, diamond, line or cross) that scales to any size without quality loss. Import directly into Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer or Inkscape.
Halftone converts continuous-tone images into dot patterns. Larger dots represent dark areas, smaller dots represent light areas — simulating the printing technique used in newspapers and magazines since the 1880s. Today halftone is widely used for posters, zines, album art, screen printing and retro-inspired graphic design.
Yes. You can create halftone effects and download at 800px for free, no signup needed. Everything runs in your browser — your images are never uploaded to a server. Pro users get full resolution exports and SVG vector output for a one-time payment of €9.
Circular dots are the classic halftone look — round dots that grow and shrink with image brightness. Line screen uses horizontal lines of varying thickness, popular in engraving-style prints. Diamond creates a rotated square grid for a modern geometric look. Cross hatch overlaps horizontal and vertical bars. Square grid uses rectangular blocks for a pixel-art hybrid aesthetic.
Yes. Pro users can export halftone patterns as SVG vector files — perfect for screen printing, laser cutting and large-format printing. Every dot becomes a real vector shape (circle, square, diamond, line or cross) that scales to any size without quality loss. Import directly into Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer or Inkscape.
It depends on your output. For screen printing, a dot size of 8–16px gives a bold, visible pattern. For subtle texture on digital designs, 3–6px works well. For a coarse, graphic poster look, go above 16px. The angle also matters — 45° is standard, but try 0° or 90° for a different grid feel.
Moiré patterns appear when the halftone grid interferes with existing patterns in your image. To reduce moiré: use a 45° screen angle (the default), increase the dot size, or apply a slight blur to your source image before converting. For multi-color separation printing, use different angles for each color channel (typically 15°, 45°, 75°, and 105°).
Both halftone and dithering reduce images to limited tones, but they work differently. Halftone uses varying dot sizes on a regular grid — larger dots for dark areas, smaller for light. Dithering uses fixed-size pixels arranged in error-diffusion or ordered patterns. Halftone is the standard for print reproduction, while dithering is more common in digital and retro pixel art.
No. Everything runs entirely in your browser using the HTML Canvas API. Your images never leave your device — there is no server processing, no data collection, and no signup required. This also means the tool works offline once the page is loaded.
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