CMYK print: four ink screens of dots pressed onto warm paper

CMYK print separates the picture into the four process inks and lays each one down as its own screen of dots, set at its own angle so the dots gather into the rosettes of a magazine page, with Cell size 16 keeping the screen coarse enough to see. Dots grow with how much ink a spot needs, neighbors flow together into drops, and where inks overlap they darken one another on cream paper with a little tooth. In the preview the turquoise wings of the butterfly print as a solid field of cyan under black dots, heavy black runs along their borders, the orange leaf turns coral red, and the pale lilac backdrop stays cream paper scattered with small colored dots.

Make it yours

• 01

  Make the dots bigger or finer

  Cell size 16 is a coarse, poster-like screen where single dots are easy to pick out. Drop it to 8 for a finer magazine print, or push it to 28 for oversized dots that still read on a phone-sized social card.

• 02

  Flood or starve the press

  Strength sets how far the ink spreads. Above 50 every dot swells, so midtones close up into blots and drops; at 25 the dots shrink and more paper shows through, for a lighter and cleaner print.

FAQ

How it works

1. 01

   Upload an image

   Add a PNG, JPG or WebP up to 20 MB or pick a sample photo, then keep its own shape or crop it to 1:1, 4:5, 3:2, 16:9 or 9:16.

2. 02

   Choose a mode

   Dither with 14 algorithms and 13 palettes, Shapes with dots, squares, lines, crosses and diamonds, or Photo art with 18 pixel and print styles from LED matrix to stained glass.

3. 03

   Style and use it

   Set pixel size and contrast, add scanlines, bloom, grain or a vignette, then sign in with a free UX Pilot account to use it on the canvas or export it.