Welcome to Printful Design Series.
Neon colors have become one of the biggest trends in today's fashion.
To achieve the aesthetic neon look, often you need to add different glow effects, which
can cause semi-transparencies in the image that we need to avoid.
That's where the halftone effect comes in handy.
For this tutorial, I’ll be using this design that has a glow effect placed on a separate
layer.
I’ll create a copy of the original project file, where we’ll recreate the halftone
effect.
Then, I’ll rename the created copy and open it.
This is where we’ll be working with the silhouette of the original design.
We’ll need the original file later on.
I’ll start by turning all the layers black and white.
I’ll select the glow layer, then go to “Image”, “Adjustments”, and choose “Desaturate”.
You can also achieve this effect by selecting “Black and White” in the “Adjustments”
panel.
Let’s do this on the design layer.
A new window will open up where I’ll set all the digits to a maximum of 300%.
Since we’ll be applying the halftone effect to the semi-transparent areas, we want the
letters to have a solid white color in order to remain unaffected by the changes we’re
about to make.
Press “OK” to apply this effect.
Once that’s done, go to “Image”, select “Mode”, and choose “Grayscale”.
You’ll be asked to merge the layers in the new pop up window.
Press “Merge”.
Then another message will appear where you’ll be asked to discard the color information,
press “Discard”.
Next, I’ll decrease the radius of the fading part that's left from the glow layer by adjusting
the contrast using “Levels”.
Press “Control+L” and play around with the settings until you get your desired result.
Now we're going to convert the image to the “Bitmap” mode.
Go to “Image”, “Mode”, and select “Bitmap”.
You'll be asked to flatten layers.
Press “OK”.
A new pop-up window will appear.
Make sure you set at least 1000/1500/2000 PPI in the Output field.
This controls the resolution and will make sure your halftones have smoother edges.
Then under “Method”, choose “Halftone Screen”. and click “OK”.
In the next window, you can control the “Frequency”, “Angle”, and “Shape” of the halftone.
With lower frequency numbers, you'll create larger “spots.”
You can experiment with 6 shapes – round, diamond, ellipse, line, square, and cross.
Since I’ll be using a round shape, the angle degree won’t matter.
I’ll set the frequency to 20 and press “OK”.
You may want to avoid higher frequencies as they will create very small dots which will
cause trouble later in the editing process and can also lower the quality of the print.
When we zoom in, we see that the dots don't cross the solid white area where our design
should be located.
If you notice that the dots to cross the solid white area of your design, return to the moment
where you adjusted the contrast in the levels window, before converting to the “Bitmap”
mode.
Next, I’ll change the image mode back to “Grayscale” and adjust the DPI to what
it originally was.
Go to “Image” and select “Image Size”.
There, in the resolution window, change it from 1000 back to its original digit, in my
case, that’s 300.
Next, I’ll unlock the layer by pressing on the lock icon in the Layers panel and rename
the layer to “Halftone”.
Select the halftone layer, then press Control-A and Control-C to copy everything.
Next, open up the original project file and duplicate the design and glow layers.
Select both of them by holding down the “Control” key and then drag them on the “Create a
new layer” icon, located under the layers panel.
Now I’ll merge the duplicates by right-clicking on them and choosing “Merge Layers”.
Next, hide the original layers by pressing on the eye icon located here.
Now, select the merged duplicate and create a layer mask by pressing here.
Next, hold down “Alt” and click on the layer mask thumbnail.
This will allow you to edit the mask directly.
Now I’ll paste the halftone shape into the mask by pressing “Control+V”.
To view the finished result, click back on the artwork thumbnail.
If the original file doesn’t have a background, it's important to add one and merge it with
the design.
If you apply this effect onto a semi-transparent graphic, it won't fix the transparency issue.
You can see that when we switch off the background layer, the dots are still semi-transparent.
To fix this, hold the “Control”key and click on the mask thumbnail.
Now add a solid color layer by pressing here.
Choose a color that's slightly darker than the one used for the glow effect.
You want to make sure that the design doesn’t blend in with the selected color, and press
“OK”.
All that’s left is to drag the color fill layer under the shape layer.
As you can see, this particular example can only work with printing on dark shirts.
If you’re looking for a file to print on lighter shirts, merge the original graphic
with a different color background.
Sometimes you need to create multiple versions to get results that work for a wide variety
of shirts.
If you enjoyed this video leave a like, and let us know what other neat things you would
like to learn to help you create awesome product designs.
See you next time.