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Halftone Image

A halftone reproduces continuous tone using only solid ink, by varying the size of dots on a regular grid. Large dots read as dark, small dots as light, and at normal viewing distance the eye blends them into shades of grey.

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How to make a halftone image

  1. Add your image

    Drop a JPG, PNG or WebP onto the drop zone, or click to choose one.

  2. Set the dot spacing

    Smaller spacing keeps more detail and looks finer. Larger spacing gives the bold comic-book look.

  3. Rotate the screen

    Print traditionally used about 45 degrees, because diagonal patterning is the least noticeable to the eye.

  4. Download the result

    Keep the dots black for classic print, or tick colour to tint each dot from the image, then download the PNG.

Why use this tool

Adjustable dot spacing

From a fine 3 pixel screen that reads almost like the original up to a bold 40 pixel screen.

Rotatable screen angle

Any angle from 0 to 90 degrees, so you can hit the classic 45 degree print screen or line the dots up square.

Dot area tracks tone

Dot radius is scaled by the square root of the sampled brightness, so mid tones read correctly instead of going too dark.

Black or colour dots

Black on white for newspaper and comic looks, or dots tinted from the source for a screen-printed effect.

Runs entirely in your browser

Your image is never uploaded.

About this tool

Printing presses cannot lay down grey. They can put ink on paper or leave it blank, and nothing in between. Halftoning solved that in the 1880s by breaking an image into a grid of dots whose size varies with the tone: fat dots that almost touch read as near black, tiny dots read as near white, and everything between produces an apparent shade. Newspapers, comics and magazines all worked this way for a century, and the aesthetic is now used deliberately.

Two settings do most of the work. Dot spacing is the screen frequency, the equivalent of lines per inch in print, and it trades detail against the visibility of the pattern. Screen angle matters because a grid aligned to the horizontal reads as distracting rows, while a grid rotated to around 45 degrees mostly disappears into texture. Colour printing rotated each ink to a different angle for the same reason, which is what produces the rosette pattern you can see under a loupe.

This tool samples the image at each grid position, converts that sample to perceived brightness, and draws a filled circle whose area tracks the tone rather than whose radius does. That distinction matters: scaling the radius directly makes mid tones come out far too dark. Colour mode tints each dot from the pixel underneath it rather than separating into cyan, magenta, yellow and black plates, which keeps the look readable on screen. For neighbouring effects see pixelate image, dither image, and grayscale image.

Frequently asked questions

What is a halftone?
A way of reproducing continuous tone using only solid ink, by varying the size of dots on a regular grid. It is how every printed photograph worked before digital presses.
What screen angle should I use?
Around 45 degrees for the classic print look, because diagonal patterns are the least visible to the eye. Zero or 90 degrees gives a deliberate, more graphic grid.
Why are the dots black instead of coloured?
Because that is the traditional single-ink halftone. Tick "keep the original colours" and each dot is tinted from the pixel under it instead.
What are Ben Day dots?
A related comic-book printing technique using patterns of equally sized dots rather than dots that vary with tone. A fine halftone screen at a large dot spacing gets close to the same look.
Why is the background white?
Because a halftone is ink on paper. Transparency would leave the dots floating with nothing to read them against, so the canvas is filled white before the dots are drawn.
Is my image uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser and the image never leaves your device.

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