
I just got acquianted with Inkscape and the beginner in me clamored to learn how to create a colored halftone effect in inkscape. Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor that works like Adobe Illustrator. One notable difference between Illustrator and Inkscape is that Illustrator costs about $600 bucks while Inkscape is $0.00; in other words, free.
I found a cool tutorial about creating halftone effects in inkscape here. It describes the process of creating a black halftone effect. After learning it, I soon hankered to create a halftone effect in a color other than black. Perhaps I just didn’t search long enough, but I didn’t find any on google. So, I tweaked and experimented on what I have learned so far and found that one could make a colored halftone effect in inkscape using the following procedures (same as istarlome’s but just slightly revised):
- Create a 300px X 300px light gray box (no stroke)
- Within the light gray box, draw (a) black or black-and-white object(s) (no stroke)
- Draw an8px X 8px dot on the uppermost-left corner of the light gray box with, say, green (or whatever color you want for your halftone) fill (no stroke)
- Group the black (or black-and-white) object(s) and the light gray box together.
- Make sure the group is selected. Blur to +/-11.
- Unselect any selected objects
- Select the green-filled dot
- In the Menu, click Edit>Clone>Create Tiled Tones> click on the Trace tab
- In the Trace Tab window:
- In ‘1. Pick from the drawings:’ choose ‘Color’
- In ‘3. Apply the value to the clones’:’ choose ‘Size’
- Select ‘Width, height:’ and input 300 x 300 px
- Click the ‘Create’ button.
- Delete the green dot
- Delete the light gray box
- Voila! A green halftone effect!
The now messed up pic of Kiera below is evidence of what can happen to a good picture when I decide to do havoc with it.
Well, the halftones here are not as impressive as I want them to be. But, charge that to my amateur talent at manipulating digital graphics. Perhaps, a few more weeks of experimenting will help.
The free Inkscape application can be downloaded here: inkscape.org.
Gee James, I don’t think your attempt was that bad at all. Any chance of seeing the original so we can see exactly what you did?
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I’ll try to dig the original images. Not much in the original actually. Kiera is just leaning on a plain wall and sitting on the floor. So, what is no longer seen here is her background (the wall and the floor), that’s all.
Well that’s amazing. How did you paste her on the background or did you do the background around her?
I just cut her off the original picture. 🙂 I traced her shape (sexy shape btw), cut, then pasted it on the image already containing the halftones. I have done this before with my wife (Jen) as the subject. She was amazed at the final picture. She said I’m potentially the best aesthetic surgeon in the world. With a few mouse clicks and deft manipulation of the keyboard (that’s ctrl-c and ctrl-v, and a lot of ctrl-x), I cut off 10 years and 20 pounds off her. And it only took less than 30 minutes. 🙂
Gee, that must have taken awhile and you must have a really steady hand. I did that with a photo not long ago and it took ages.
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