A Case Study for:

Create a halftone-dot effect in Adobe Illustrator

A while back I posted a link that would show you how to create an interesting halftone-dot effect in Photoshop.
Recently, a reader left a comment on the post asking if there was a way to achieve the same effect in Illustrator. Im
happy to report that there is, and Ive put together a tutorial to show you how.

Step 1: Create a shape in Illustrator that you wish to convert into the halftone-dot effect. I chose a star. To achieve
the mixed-size dots, youll want to use a gradient, and to make it easy later, you should probably start with a simple
black color. Step 2: Select the object and selectEffect>Pixelate>Color Halftone from the menu. The color halftone
dialog box will open where you can enter some numbers to adjust the appearance of the effect

Set the Max. Radius to 10-15 pixels. This will determine the size of the largest dot in the effect. Go ahead and leave
the screen angles at the default setting. Hit OK. The star is now converted to a raster image. The darkest areas of
the star have the largest dots, and the lightest areas have smaller dots. We are now half way there. We need to
convert the raster image to vector. Step 3:With the star still selected, go to Object>Expand Appearance in the
menu. Now selectObject>Live Trace>Make and Expand from the menu. The star is now a full vector object. You
can select each dot individually if you choose because theyre all vector shapes (see step 3 in the image above).
But you probably want to add some color. Step 4:

If the star is on a white background, everything will appear to be perfect. But draw a box, fill it with color and send it
to the back by hitting Command-Shift-[. Youll notice that the inside of the star remains white. If you want it to be
transparent, you have just a bit more work to do. See the image at the right for an example of what Im talking
about. Use your Direct Select tool (the white arrow) to select any white are in the newly created halftone dot area.
Go toSelect>Same>Fill Color in the menu. Now that all the white areas are selected (including the white bounding
box around the star, hit Delete. You should be left with nothing but the dots now. Now select the star again and add
a color to it as you would any other object. Because the star is a compound path, all the dots will be colorized.
Thats it. You have your halftone-dot effect, and its a fully-editable vector object in Illustrator. Why would you want
to do it in Illustrator? Because many sign shops and screen printers require everything to be a vector shape
depending on their production methods. Plus, it adds a little more flexibility for later editing.

I chose to use a one color object for the sake of keeping this tutorial simple, but you can apply the same technique
to a full color object for different results. See the image above with the same star filled with a color gradient.