Black and White Print Dithering

This first effect allows you to transform plain black and white text into diffused text that gives the idea of something that came out of a badly adjusted printing press. Proceed as follows:

1. Create a new document measuring around 500 pixels wide by 150 pixels high.
   
   
Select the Greyscale mode, the Fill with: White option, then close the dialog box by clicking on OK.


2. Make sure that the foreground colour is black. If not, press the D key.
   
   
3. Create your text in the image.
   
   
Select a bold font (Arial Black or Helvetica Black, for instance) and a fairly large font size (60 points or more).


Think big. Your text is likely to be illegible after applying the filter if you choose a font that is too small.


4. Flatten the image by selecting Layer > Flatten image.
   
   
5. Select Filter > Pixelate > Colour halftone.
   
   
6. Enter 4 in the Max. Radius field and 45 in the other four fields in the dialog box that appears.
   
   


Figure 1: The Colour halftone filter dialog box, with the right settings.


7. Click on OK to apply the dithering effect to your text.
   
   

Figure 2: Text that has had the dithering effect applied.