Question about halftone brushes in PS

[yadnom1973]

I’ve been working in Krita but it’s bugged out on me and I’m trying to finish in Photoshop CS6 though I don’t know it very well. I’m designing for screen print and one of the strengths of Krita was the Halftone brushes.

So I downloaded some halftone brushes online for Photoshop, I’ve got a feeling that they are not what I imagine. I’m looking for a brush that will react to the pressure level of my pen. Putting down heavy half tone when the mark is heavy and very small half tone when the mark is light.

But I can’t load the Halftone brushes to check them out? I put the files in the brush presets folder but am unsure how to find these brushes from the UI.

There is a Brush window with a Brush and a Brush Preset tab but in the Brush Presets tab all the brushes are numbered with a stroke as an example and not named so I cant find anything, I cant see any of the Halftone brushes I downloaded in there anyhow.

There is a drop down menu by the brush symbol at the top of the screen left but non of the names of the brushes there correspond to the brushes in the presets folder?

There is another drop down screen next to it that has a mixture of pictures of brush heads, blobs and shapes like flowers and some are numbered in a random kind of way.

Can anyone help me find thee halftone brushes I’ve downloaded to check them out?

And dose anyone know of a halftone brush for Photoshop that is sensitive to the pen pressure, and an eraser that will lighten the halftone. So you can shade with them?

 

[IamSam]

With the Brush Tool selected, right click in the work area/canvas, this will open the tool preset picker. You can also click once on the tool preset picker in the tool options bar.

Click once on the gear icon.

If you uploaded the halftone brushes properly, they will appear in the list towards the bottom of the window.

Click once on the halftone brush set, you will then get a window that asks if you want to replace the brushes with the set you have chosen, click on append.

The brush set will now appear in your brush presets.

 

[yadnom1973]

thanks Sam. they were not there but there was an option to load presets that took me to the folder with all the files. These files were grayed out but after fiddling around and trying the load preset option a few ways I got to the folder without them being greyed out and uploaded all the halftone brushes I downloaded to my brush preset window.

all of them are the same though. they are ether like a large block or gradient of halftone. or they are a brush stamp made from a circle of halftone, these brushes are messy and though pressure sesative just lay down the tone in blobs. if you shade in half the page you do not have half a page of neat halftone.

The large stamps are just that. like handling large pices of physical tone on a sheet.

have you, or has anyone come across a digital halftone brush. that lets you laydown areas of tone by brushing them in, and the weight of the tone is dictated by the pressure of the pen?

 

[yadnom1973]

Or an eraser that will lighten the halftone already down by reducing the size/density/weight. Not by lightening the black or color which defeats the purpose for screen printing.

 

[Tom Mann]

If I understand your question correctly, my suggestion would be not to do it the way you suggested, but rather, simply use a solid black (or white) brush (with possible pressure sensitivity) to lay down different gray levels in the area you want to fill, and then use a conventional half-tone rendering engine (either native to PS or a 3rd party plugin) to convert the contone gray levels into halftone dots of varying size.

Tom M

 

[yadnom1973]

Yes I think you get what I'm asking about Tom. I have a method of using it by layering different colors on top of one another and would really miss this but the grey scale to halftone might be a workable alternative if this kind of brush cant be found elsewhere outside of Krita.

 

[Tom Mann]

Sorry, but I'm finding it somewhat difficult to translate your workflow into Photoshop terms.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you want to lay down each color on top of each other, but then have the size of the halftone dots reflect either the overall luminosity (or ink) at that point, but have their color be exactly the same as the composite color you laid down, and not the usual 3 overlaping circles of diffferent color ink that color halftones usually are made from. Is this right?

Tom M

 

[Tom Mann]

Let me be a bit more specific by giving an example:

If, say, you started with something like this (ie, by overlaying your different colored layers):



Is your goal to wind up with something like this (eg, or it's inverse, ie, colored dots of varying size on a black or white background, instead of black dots on a colored background)?



If your goal is either of these variants, both are easy to do. There are lots of similar things that could also be done. Let us know.

Tom M

PS - I will be away from my computer till late tonight, and if that's what you want, one of our regulars will certainly be able to explain how.

 

[yadnom1973]

It's a peculiar workflow and I'm missing a lot of the Ps lingo to describe it I fear but you have hit it almost on the head. The color of the half tone will always be just the same color as the layer it is part of as these images are from a fixed number of layers and each of these layers can be any color. So forget the color halftone method I'm not using this and do not want to use this though it's been an education as I didn't know that was how they worked.
I'm not looking to take an image and then use halftone or even screen printing for that matter as a way of recreating it. I'm looking for a way to set up a Ps project in such a way that it mimics a screen print, (layers of single color ink stacked, where each layer is black/white alpha only and the number of layers, color of the layers and opacity of the layers are all adjustable). So that I can then work within it as an environment to see what kind of images this medium can create.
One of the things I had gotten into the habit of doing was using halftone is such a way that I would sketch in it using the gray scale and was looking for a brush or eraser that linked pressure with the size of the dots in the halftone.

Unfortunately one of the problems I have is being stranded with this 2011 Macbook that cant run Krita and there being very little internet so I cant upload a video of the brush as explanation or get to any examples of the work.

Maybe I can get Krita to run long enough to do a simple sketch in the brush and upload that later.

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Yadnom -

I could be wrong, but I suspect that one of the reasons you are not getting good answers is that you are having problems expressing complex but subtle technical issues in English. For example, even after reading your last post several times, unfortunately, I still wasn't sure of exactly what you want. So, to help me understand, I hope that you don't mind, but I edited your last post to try to make its meaning clear and unambiguous. I've attached my edited version directly below, and would appreciate it if you could tell me if I interpreted all the points in your post correctly.

Once we've established that my interpretation is indeed correct, I'm sure we can then find a way to do exactly what you want in Photoshop.

Please let me know.

Sincerely,

Tom M

===============================
Please let me know if this interpretation of your previous post is exactly correct. If I misunderstood something, just let me know. Note: I did not make any changes to your last 2 or 3 paragraphs.

"I realize that I have my own, unusual workflow. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with a lot of the standard Ps terminology, so, it's difficult for me to describe my workflow in standard terms. However, your previous post almost hit the nail on the head.

Let me start by saying that I am not interested in the conventional color halftone method. I'm not currently using this method, and don't want to use it. However, it has been an education for me to learn how this method works.

Secondly, I don't want to take an image, and then use conventional halftone or even screen printing methods as a way of recreating it.

Rather, I'm looking for a way to set up a Ps project in such a way that it mimics a screen print. I want to have an arbitrary number of stacked layers, where each layer represents a single ink color. Each of these layers is black/white (ie, like an alpha channel). The number of layers, the colors they represent, and the opacity of the layers should all be adjustable. I am doing this so that I can then work within this framework to see what kind of images I can create using it.

Within the above framework, one of my favorite approaches has been to use one of Krita's halftone brushes to draw directly on each layer and have the pressure I apply to my stylus control the size of the dots in the black and white halftone pattern that is being laid down on that layer.

Of course, when the whole layer stack is viewed (or printed), the color of the half tone dots in each layer will always be the color currently assigned to that layer.

Unfortunately one of the problems I have is being stranded with this 2011 Macbook that cant run Krita and there being very little internet so I cant upload a video of the brush as explanation or get to any examples of the work.

Maybe I can get Krita to run long enough to do a simple sketch in the brush and upload that later."

 

[yadnom1973]

That's a pretty accurate translation, thanks for taking the time. I suppose ultimately what I'm asking for is just the brush. A halftone brush or eraser that varies the size of the dots with the pressure applied. I actually use this brush to mix the colors too but this is beside the point. If anyone knows of a brush out there like this I'd appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

 

[Tom Mann]

OK. Thanks for responding so quickly.

Let me work something up.

I'll get back to you later today.

Tom

 

[yadnom1973]

Well the timing might be coincidence. I'm in Nepal and can only be online in the evenings but I answer as soon as I get the chance. Thanks for the help Tom, I really appreciate it.

 

[yadnom1973]

It's cost me a considerable amount of pain but I've managed to upload a few seconds of the Krita halftone brush in action. hopefully this will clear up any misunderstandings, it's a bit of a tricky thing to describe and I don't want to go round in circles because of my inability to clearly explain what I'm looking for.

 

[Tom Mann]

Thanks for uploading that, Yadnom. As of a few hours ago, I was reasonably confident that I understood what you have been doing in Krita, and what you would like Photoshop to do. Fortunately, the video you just posted confirms it.

The reason I wanted to be sure about all the other aspects of your workflow is because I am reasonably certain that there is no such corresponding facility in Photoshop, so you will probably have to settle for a work-around, and wanted to be sure anything I might suggest will fit in your workflow. I will post a discussion of my idea for a possible work-around later today, when I get some time, but right now, I have to run.

Again, thanks for the added info.

Tom M

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Yadnom - The work-around that I tried to develop for you didn't produce high quality images, and I don't know of any photoshop brushes whose dynamics work this way, so about the only thing I can suggest for getting this effect within Photoshop is what I suggested earlier: Lay down contone images of different densities using the ordinary dynamics of photoshop brushes, ie, just like you did in your video but not using a special Krita halftone brush, and then, after the fact, convert the image in the desired areas to halftone dots using any of the conventional methods. In other words, convert:



to:



If you don't want the half-tone dots to be in such a regular pattern, use one of the plugins (eg, VanDerLee's) that can add jitter and thereby simulate stochastic halftoning, eg,




HTH,

Tom M

 

[yadnom1973]

I'm sorry this reply is so late coming I've been cut off the internet for a while here. Stochastic halftone, very nice. Not seen that before and I like it a lot, just a little to make it easier on the eye might work a treat for me as my halftone is always so big. There are some nice Ps ones I found for worrying and ageing the halftone too.

Thanks for looking into this for me Tom, at least now I can say that it's just not going to work how I want and I'd better try and find another way. I'm going to give the method you suggest a go and see how I do, maybe it'll have advantages of it's own.

I must say, for all my complaining about this and that in Ps, one of the best things about Ps I've found so far is you guys and all the help I've got here and elsewhere on line. This and the fact that it just seems to work all the time on all my devices are not quality's to be underestimated.

Thanks again Tom and all the best, N.

 

[Tom Mann]

We are always the happiest when someone comes by with an excellent, challenging question. Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out to do exactly what you wanted, but it was a good conversation. Please do stop by again!

Cheers,

Tom M