Artistic effects and their settings
All 12 effects in the Artistic tab, from Halftone and Dither to Oil Paint and Woodcut, with what every slider does to the picture.
Beginner6 min readUpdated 25 September 2026Effects · Artistic
On this page
The Artistic tab turns a photo into something that looks drawn, painted or printed. Use this page to pick the right one and to know which slider to reach for. Most of these effects throw away colour or detail on purpose, so start with a photo that has a clear subject and strong light.
Halftone
Classic print dots. The photo becomes black dots on white, laid out on a square grid. Each dot is sized by how dark that patch of the photo is: dark areas get big dots that touch, light areas get tiny ones or none.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Dot Size | 10 to 100 | The grid spacing. Low values give fine dots that read as a photo from a distance. High values give big, graphic dots. |
| Contrast | 20 to 100 | How large the dots grow. At 50 the darkest dots just fill their cell. Above 50 dark dots grow into each other and shadows go solid. Below 50 every dot shrinks and the image goes lighter. |
Good for: comic and pop-art posters, newspaper looks, screen-print style graphics. The result is always black and white; recolour it in the Editor with a colour layer or blend mode. There is also a dedicated Halftone quick tool.
Dither
Floyd-Steinberg dithering. Every pixel becomes pure black or pure white, and the error is spread to its neighbours, so grey tones become patterns of scattered dots.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Threshold | 0 to 100 | Where the split between black and white sits. Higher values push more of the image dark; lower values keep it bright. |
Good for: retro computer and early game-console looks, one-colour print, zine covers. Works pixel by pixel, so the full-size download is finer than the preview.
ASCII
Splits the image into a grid of square cells and fills each one solid black or solid white from the cell's average brightness. It does not draw letters: the result is a chunky two-tone block grid.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Cell Size | 10 to 80 | The size of each block. Small cells keep the shape of the subject; large cells turn it into a bold, blocky silhouette. |
Good for: a harsh one-bit, low-resolution look and bold silhouettes on a strong subject.
Mosaic
Square tiles, each filled with the average colour of the photo under it, with a thin darker line on the top and left of every tile like grout.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tile Size | 5 to 100 | The width of each tile. Small tiles keep the picture readable; large ones abstract it into blocks of colour. |
Good for: tile and glass-block textures, backgrounds, abstract colour studies. Pick Pixelate instead if you do not want the grout lines.
Oil Paint
Each pixel takes the average colour of the most common tone around it. Fine texture disappears, edges stay, and flat patches of colour form like brush strokes.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Brush Size | 10 to 100 | How far around each pixel it looks. Bigger brushes give larger, smoother patches and a more painted look. Larger values take longer to render. |
| Detail | 10 to 100 | How many tone bands it separates the photo into. Low values give broad, flat areas; high values keep more subtle shading. |
Good for: portraits and landscapes you want to feel painted, softening busy backgrounds while keeping outlines.
Crosshatch
Dark ink lines on warm cream paper. Light areas stay blank. As the photo gets darker, more line directions are added: first one diagonal, then the other diagonal, then horizontal lines, and vertical lines only in the very darkest areas.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Line Spacing | 10 to 100 | The gap between lines. Tight spacing reads as fine pen shading; wide spacing looks bold and graphic. |
Good for: engraving and pen-and-ink illustration looks, editorial portraits, packaging.
Stipple
Tiny near-black dots scattered on cream paper. Dark areas get many dots, light areas few or none, the way an illustrator shades with a technical pen.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Dot Density | 10 to 100 | How many dots go into dark areas. Raise it to make shadows denser and the image darker overall. |
| Cell Size | 10 to 100 | The patch size the photo is measured in. Small cells follow detail closely; larger cells give a looser, more even spread. |
| Randomize | 0 to 1000 | Moves every dot to a new random position without changing the tone. |
Good for: scientific-illustration and old-print looks, subtle texture behind type.
Watercolor
Softens the photo, reduces it to a limited set of colours, then darkens the boundaries between colour areas slightly, like paint pooling at the edge of a wash.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Softness | 10 to 100 | How much the photo is blurred first. Higher values give looser, blurrier washes. |
| Detail Levels | 10 to 100 | How many colour steps are kept. Low values give flat, poster-like washes; high values keep smoother gradients. |
Good for: gentle, illustrated looks for invitations, menus and travel images.
Pencil Sketch
Finds the edges in the photo and draws them as grey pencil lines on white. Flat areas go white.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Line Strength | 10 to 100 | How dark the lines are and how many faint edges show. Low values give a light outline sketch; high values bring in texture and heavy lines. |
Good for: line drawings of products and buildings, colouring-page style art, a base to paint over in the Editor. Works pixel by pixel, so large downloads have finer lines than the preview.
Pop Art
Splits the photo into bands of brightness and gives each band a bright colour from a fixed palette of pink, cyan, yellow, orange, green, purple, light pink and blue.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Color Levels | 10 to 100 | How many brightness bands there are. Low values give three bold flat colours; high values give up to eight. |
| Color Blend | 0 to 100% | How much of the pop palette replaces the photo's own colours. 100% is pure palette; lower values let the original show through. |
Good for: Warhol-style portraits, loud social posts, a series of the same image in different treatments.
Pointillism
Round dots of colour taken from the photo, slightly jittered off a grid, on a near-black background that shows between them.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Dot Size | 10 to 100 | The size of each dot. Small dots keep the image readable; large dots make an abstract, confetti-like picture. |
| Randomize | 0 to 1000 | Shuffles the jitter so each dot lands in a slightly different place. |
Good for: colourful abstract backgrounds, a painterly nod to Seurat, night-time and neon photos where the dark background suits.
Woodcut
Black ink on off-white paper, cut with diagonal grain lines. Dark areas print solid, mid-tones become lines, and light areas stay paper.
| Setting | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Threshold | 0 to 100 | Shown on the panel. In the current version it does not change the result. |
| Line Spacing | 10 to 100 | The width of the grain lines. Low values give fine lines; high values give broad, rough cuts. |
Good for: linocut and woodblock posters, craft beer and folk-style labels. For a rougher print, follow with Film Grain in the Editor. See the textured print look workflow.