Hi. This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
I'm going to show you how to transform black and white clip art into old-school, matchbook halftone graphics.
I provided two images that you can download so you can follow along.
One is a paper texture and the other is black and white clip art.
Their links are in my video's description below or project files.
Feel free to use different black and white clip art if you like, however, the effect
will look best if the clip art contains a variety of thick and thin shapes.
If you do use your own clip art, go to Image and Image Size.
Its width and height should be approximately 500 pixels and its resolution should be 72 pixels per inch.
Click off the lock ion icon to unlock the layer.
Open the Channels panel.
If you don't see it, go to Window and Channels.
Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the RGB channel to make a selection of the clip art's shapes.
Open back the Layers panel and press the "Delete" key on your keyboard to delete the white areas
around the black shapes.
Deselect it by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + D.
Click this icon at the upper, right corner and click "Duplicate Layer".
Open the Document list and click "New".
Type in "clip art" and click OK.
Immediately, Photoshop duplicated our clip art as a new document.
Repeat the same steps as before by Ctrl-clicking or Cmd-clicking the RGB channel to make a
selection of its shape and open back the Layers panel.
Unlock the layer.
As before, press the "Delete" key to delete the white shape surrounding the clip art and deselect it.
Open back the original clip art and go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian Blur.
Blur it 15 pixels.
We'll make the blurred image denser by adding copies of itself.
Press Ctrl or Cmd + J twice to make two copies of it.
Merge them together by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + E twice.
Go to Image, Mode and "Grayscale".
If you see this message, click "Discard".
Go back to Image, Mode and "Bitmap".
When you see this message asking you to flatten layers, just click OK.
The Output is 72 pixels per inch and the "Method" is "Halftone Screen".
Make the "Frequency" 15 lines per inch, the Angle: 45 degrees and the Shape: Round.
Go back to Image, Mode and "Grayscale".
The Size Ratio is 1.
Go back to Image, Mode and click "RGB color".
Open the Channels panel and Ctrl-click or Cmd-click the RGB channel to make a selection of the bitmap dots.
Open back the Layers panel and unlock the layer.
Press the Delete key to delete the white areas around the bitmap dots.
Then, deselect it.
Open the paper texture I provided.
Make sure your Move Tool is active.
If it isn't, press "v" on your keyboard.
Drag the paper onto the tab of your bitmap image.
Without releasing your mouse or pen, press and hold the Shift key as you drag it down and release.
Pressing Shift kept the paper centered over the bitmap.
To resize the paper, open your Transform Tool by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + T.
Go to a corner and when you see a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold Alt or Option + Shift as you
drag it in or out.
If your using version CC 2019 or later, just press Alt or Option as you drag it.
Then, click the check-mark at the top or press Enter or Return.
Drag the paper below the bitmap.
Quick tip: A keyboard shortcut to move one layer below another is Shift + Ctrl or Cmd
+ the left bracket key.
Next we'll colorize the bitmap by double-clicking the bitmap thumbnail to open its Layer Style window.
Click “Color Overlay”.
Click the color box and pick a relatively dark color.
You can always change it later.
Click OK on both windows or press Enter or Return twice.
Open back the clip art duplicate document that you made earlier.
We'll place it onto the bitmap document over the paper by either dragging it onto the tab
as we did earlier or by pressing Ctrl or Cmd + A to select it all and Ctrl or Cmd + C to copy it.
Open the bitmap document and press Ctrl or Cmd + v to paste in the duplicate clip art.
We'll colorize the this clip art using the same steps.
Double-click the top layer to open its Layer Style window and click “Color Overlay”.
This time, pick a brighter version of the darker color you picked for the bitmap under it.
To blend it with the bitmap, first, we'll need to convert it into a Smart Object, otherwise
the Blend Mode won't work.
Change the Blend Mode to "Multiply".
This is Marty from Blue Lightning TV.
Thanks for watching!