Creating a Halftone effect in Illustrator? 1

[Metadog]

When viewed under slight magnification, a print that has been produced using a halftone screen will show a dot pattern that's sometimes called Benday dots. This technique is used a lot on Diet Lemon and Lime Coke cans. I can get this effect from using the Gaussian Blur and Color Halftone filters in Photoshop. I can then make paths from my selection if this art and bring these paths into Illustrator. The problem is that this makes really rough paths even if I start with a very high resolution image in Photoshop.

The question is this: Do you know a clean way to make Benday dots in Illustrator?

Thanks!
-M

 

[dimoj]

Effect>Pixelate>Halftone Colour (on a vector)

Filter>Pixelate>Halftone Colour (on a raster)

 

[Metadog]

That is a great filter! Thanks. Is there a way to get access to the paths in the altered item? I can't seem to get in to the art to manipulate it.

 

[dimoj]

Hmmmm, I don't think you can as such. But remember that if you are using the Effect on a vector then that effect is 'live'. In other words you can select your object, open your Appearances Palette and double click on the Halftone Colour effect in that palette...then you can change the settings of that halftone filter.

 

[Metadog]

Will this art be as good a quality as a traditional vector image? Could I scale it to billboard size and still maintain the image integrity? How about going to press in general? Would a printer be able to handle a file like this? I have had problems with rips not being able to handle complex Illustrator images in the past, I don't know about this kind of file.

 

[dimoj]

Will this art be as good a quality as a traditional vector image? Could I scale it to billboard size and still maintain the image integrity?

I can say a definate YES to both those questions.

As for the press/rip stuff, I can't answer that...it's not my bag, baby.

Hopefully someone else will jump in and help you out there.

 

[nedstar1]

A professional press/printer should be able to handle this kind of print job. Billboards, if you've never gotten up close to one, are just heavy paper applied in panels with wallpaper glue. That is to say, they aren't a single image, but a series of panels with alignment marks. So if you are expecting a single 20 foot image, you're going to really need a specialty print shop and some lead time.

And you can do images like this in Illustrator, yes.

What kinds of issues have you had with your rips?

 

[Metadog]

I have hit rips that simply can't handle very complicated vector images. Too many points on a path and the rip chokes.

Though I am very experienced with Illustrator, I guess you can say I am "old school" since I don't know much about this particular feature. I need to do some research so I can understand how it works. It seems like there aren't any paths involved, this is why I wonder about scalability.

-M

 

[Metadog]

Oh, and as far as billboards are concerned, I have been doing some of those giant single sheets of vinyl. Kind of like outputting on a giant inkjet printer.