Half Tone Filter
One of the fun things in Photoshop is the Filter Menu. You can do many different things with the PS supplied filters, from blurring edges to creating textures. One that is easy to use is the Half Tone Filter. You can create striped, circular or squared patterns to use in two colors. This is ideal for you hybrid and paper scrappers who may want to accent something in coordinating or contrasting colors to the paper supplies you are using. I am going to create a 2 inch paper square which could be used as a paper accent or tag.
In PS or PSE select your foreground and background colors and create a new document of 600 x 600 x 300 pixels (2 inch square). Use the paint bucket tool to flood fill this with your foreground color. Along the top menu click on filters, selecting Sketch and then click on Halftone.
Fig.1. Half Tone Filter
To the left of your screen you will see the foreground color change to now include the background color. The first halftone pattern I am looking at is horizontal lines. To be able to see the lines I have set the size slider to the maximum of 12. The pattern type is line and the contrast slider is across at the maximum setting to give crisp edges. You can decrease this for a softer, more blurred look.
Fig. 2. Filter Settings - Lines
For my 2 inch square, I am going to use the dots pattern, which is really a check pattern. Again I am using the largest values possible for the sliders.
Fig. 3. Filter Settings - Dots
