Photoshop for surface design – Dithering/Halftoning and Black and white bitmaps (1-bit images)

● There´s many tools in Photoshop for reducing colors of a design into only black and white. These tools can be used for color
reduction of all monochromatic images. To use these tools for color images, convert the design first to grayscale and in the end add
color to design again.

● There´s even a color mode in Photoshop that can include only black and white, bitmap-mode. These black and white bitmaps can be
used easily also in Illustrator

● All techniques in this hand out suite for images in Grayscale-mode. So start by converting the sketch into Grayscale-mode:
Image -> Mode -> Grayscale

Basic method for converting an image into black and white:

● Do Image -> Adjustment -> Treshold. Drag from the bar to turn the image lighter or darker

● To use file in Illustrator, convert it in bitmap-mode: Image-> Mode-> Bitmap use: 50% threshold

Two or more print colors

● It would usually create a better result to print a painterly design with two or more tones. To make two print colors, make 2 layers:
one for lighter color and one for darker color. First copy the design into a new layer.

● Light (base) color: Select downmost layer and do Image -> Adjustment -> Treshold. Drag the bar until almost all color is black

● Dark (accent) color: Select topmost layer and Treshold it. Now drag the bar until only the darker parts of image are black

● Select all white in the layers and delete it. Select all black in layer and fill color in it. (The design could be later on converted to RGB-
mode to enable adding also other colors than gray to it.)

● You could also do Treshold in Adjustment – Layer. Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Treshold

● To use files in Illustrator, save both layers as files and convert them into bitmap-mode: Image-> Mode-> Bitmap use: 50% threshold

Dithering/Halftoning with filters

● To still better preserve tonal, e.g watercolor look of the sketch, you could use dithering/half toning. You could use dithering with just
one print color, but with two tones the results are usually better. As described above, for two tones two layers are needed.

● Use Image -> Adjustment -> Levels or Curves to adjust the image so, that areas that are supposed to be full color are black and areas
that are supposed to be without color, are white (e.g background)

● Erase the background of the image

● Use filter to add a dithering structure in the image. Then use Treshold to reduce colors into black and white.

● Filter -> Filter Gallery -> Texture -> Texturiser

● Increase Relief to add more structure. Try e.g. 5-20
● You can also change Texture: e.g. Sandstone, Canvas, Burlap

● Filter -> Filter Gallery -> Texture -> Grain

● Increase Intensity to add more structure. Try f.eg. 50-100
● You can also adjust Contrast.With 100% contrast, you dont need to do Treshold after filtering
● You can also change Grain type. Some of them make very fine pixel mesh
 ● Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise can be used in similar way as Texturizer and Grain.

● Also Filter -> Pixelate -> Mezzotint or Pointillize could be used but there are not many settings to adjust in these.

● Try also other filters! Note that you can control the settings in different filters in different ways. Most often you can adjust the type,
size and/or amount of structure, and contrast.

● Filters made especially for this use can be also bought as plug-in, e.g Pixeology Artistic Halftone

● After filtering, reduce colors into black and white: Image -> Adjustment -> Treshold.

● Drag from the bar to turn the image darker or lighter. Note, that only after this step, you will actually see how the filtering worked!

● If the result is too dark or too light, you can undo Treshold and do it again. (You could also do Treshold in Adjustment – Layer)

● If you lost too much information from the image, you can undo filtering, and do it again adding on this time more structure. You can
also increase or decrease contrast in the Levels before filtering.

● If there´s too much noise in the design after filtering, you can undo filtering, and do it again with less structure.

● You can save the History - state before filtering as a snapshot.

● To use files in Illustrator, convert them in bitmap-mode: Image-> Mode-> Bitmap use: 50% threshold

Dithering/Halftoning by converting to bitmap

● Another method for dithering is to use the options available when converting an image to bitmap-mode

● Use Image -> Adjustment -> Levels or Curves to adjust the image so, that areas that are supposed to be full color are black and areas
that are supposed to be without color, are white (e.g background)

● Do Image -> Mode -> Bitmap. Select Method:

● 50% treshold simply converts the darker pixels into black, and lighter pixels into white

● All the other methods make some sort of dithering/halftoning:

● Diffusion dither makes very fine pixel mesh: dense mesh for dark areas and loose mesh for light areas. This mesh is not the best for
printing on textile, as it is so fine, especially on 300 dpi.

● Halftone screen makes the basic dither: dots in diagonal lines. Dots will be large in dark areas and smaller in light areas. Halftone is
commonly used in offset printing (newspapers, magazines...) and also in textile printing. You can specify the shape of dots,
frequency (how many lines per inch = lpi) and the angle of lines. For best results, lpi - value should go evenly into the resolution of
image. For example, if frequency would be 42 lpi, resolution could be 84 px/inch. If you print several half tone screens on top of
each other, use different angles. To avoid moire - effect, turn the angle e.g 30 degrees more for each screen. For best results in half
toning, you should know how fine/rough material and screen can be used in printing.

● With Custom pattern you can dither with any pattern. Structural grayscale patterns, with many shades of gray, usually function well.
Try your own scanned structures or e.g. Photoshop´s Artist Surface or Grayscale Paper -patterns. It would be always best to make
your own patterns, because the repeats of photoshop patterns are small and blocky. You could use any simple, structured grayscale
surface (with many shades of gray)

● Always when you use dithering, keep also the original grayscale version saved. You might want to get back to it yourself, or the
customer buying your design could want it!