I started out with the thought of doing the Cute Furry Monster tutorial in Illustrator that Cara tweeted about last week. Ten minutes in, I realized that I have forgotten just about everything I know about Illustrator and that I don’t even remember how to make a circle with a radial gradient.
So I’m planning some quality time with my Illustrator Classroom in a Book and restarting my DailyDesigning timer to do a tutorial from a Photoshop book that I picked up years ago and have barely touched. The book is The Photoshop 5/5.5 Wow Book by Linnea Dayton and Jack Davis. I told you I’ve had it for years. I’ve been using Photoshop for over 10 years, but I know I’ve barely touched the edges of what it can do. This challenge is my chance to play.
In Making a Mezzotint, the book shows three different ways to create a mezzotint effect. Think newsprint. I took a stock image of a daisy and tried all three methods.
The original file
Method 1. Using Photoshop's Mezzotint Filter (Filter > Pixelate > Mezzotint with Medium Dots setting)
Method 2. Using a diffusion dither (Image > Mode > Bitmap > Diffusion Dither method)
Method 3. Using a pattern dither (create pattern and then apply with Image > Mode > Bitmap > Custom Pattern)
What I discovered is that I really dislike the Mezzotint filter.
The two diffusion dither options look much more interesting. I like the second method best, using the Diffusion Dither to convert the image. As for the Custom Pattern diffusion dither, I’m sure that if I’d used some gray in my pattern the way the tutorial said, I’d have gotten the mezzotint effect throughout the image, but I really like the effect I ended up with.
fantastic! i love this effect.
Great, Margie! I like the diffusion dither best. You’re being really productive here. I’m looking forward to the next posts.
Thanks for the feedback! In 10 years of using Photoshop, I don’t think I ever used Diffusion Dither either, or had any idea what it would be used for. If anyone had asked me to do a mezzotint, I’d likely have played with the mezzotint filter until I was frustrated beyond belief, never realizing I had a better and faster option.
Never had a need for a mezzotint effect so never went to that part of Photoshop, but you are right, the mezzotint filter produces anything but…
The Diffusion Dither method gives such a nice result, though it probably was not exactly what you were looking for
I didn’t really know what to expect. But I really liked the end result. The tutorial for tomorrow uses the diffusion dither again and applies it to a color image. I’m looking forward to seeing how to do that! I love texture, but I don’t really know how to apply it to things in ways that work well.