Super Cool and Easy Halftone Style Poster

Super Cool and Easy Halftone Style Poster

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a very cool effect by mixing the CMYK Halftone effect with photos and text. This effect gives a nice retro feel to your design, making it look like the poorly printed posters of rock bands.

Step 1

Open Pixelmator and import a photo of a guitar player. The one I used was courtesy of Shutterstock, and you can download it here.

Step 2

Go to Image>Levels. Use 47 for the Black, 150 for the Gray, and 255 for the White.

Step 3

Go to Image>Brightness and Contrast. Increase the Contrast to 16.

Step 4

Using the Type Tool (T) add the word “rock” using a serif font. Place it at the bottom left corner of the document so it looks like the image below.

Step 5

Now let’s add a paper texture to give a nice retro feel to the design. You can use any paper texture you want. The one I used was courtesy of Shutterstock, and you can download it here.

Step 6

Change the paper texture Blending to multiply.

Step 7

Add a new layer beneath the paper texture. The paper texture layer will always be on top of the other layers. Change the Blending of this new layer to Screen, and then, using the Brush Tool (B), select pink for the color and a soft brush. Make it quite big and paint the layer. Use the image below as a reference.

Step 8

Repeat the same procedure as in the preview step, but now use a light green for the color and paint over another part of the image.

Step 9

Import an image of a star and place it in the document. You can download the one I used here (http://weheartit.com/entry/327989). Place it in the document and change the Blending to Screen. Select the Eraser Tool (E), and delete some parts of the image, leaving just the star.

Step 10

Select the text layer and go to Layer>Add Mask. Then with the Brush Tool (B) choose some grunge brushes. The ones I used are from Eduardo Recife, and you can download them at http://misprintedtype.com. Then paint over the mask to create a nice grunge effect.

Step 11

Select all layers and duplicate them. With all the duplicated layers selected, go to Layer>Merge Layers. Next, go to Filter>Halftone>CMYK Halftone. Use -19 for the Angle, 2 for the Width, 50 for the Sharpness, 100 for the GCR, and 50 for the UCR.

Conclusion

This a very simple technique that is much easier to achieve than it would be if you were using other tools like Photoshop that require making lots of adjustments to create a nice Halftone. Now it’s up to you to apply it to meet your needs.