Turn a portrait into a newspaper dot screen
Before photos could be printed directly, every newspaper portrait was a field of dots — small in the highlights, fat and merging in the shadows. This tool rebuilds that effect from your own photo, reading its tones and laying down dots that grow with the darkness.
Because it samples the image and even does light edge detection, faces hold together: eyes and lip lines stay legible while flat areas open up. Tune dot pitch, contrast, shadow weight and the screen angle to taste.
How to use it
- Upload a clear, reasonably high-contrast portrait (it opens on a sample so you can see the range first).
- Set Dot pitch for the screen coarseness and Max dot for how heavy the shadows get.
- Use Contrast and Highlight cutoff to control how much of the face drops to white.
- Pick ink and paper colors, then export the PNG.
Where designers use it
- editorial and zine portrait art
- poster and album-cover treatments
- high-contrast profile and avatar images
- newspaper-style illustration
FAQ
My photo just looks like noise — what went wrong?
Low-contrast or busy images confuse the screen. Push Contrast up, raise the Highlight cutoff so the background clears to white, and use a portrait with a clear light/dark separation.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs locally in your browser — the image is read and processed on your device and never leaves it.
Can I print this?
Yes — export at a large size and the dots stay crisp. A genuine newspaper-dot portrait is a great fit for risograph, screen print and laser print.
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