How can I make this?

[gwpriester]

There you go Egg, Salaam has done it in Xtreme.

[iamtheblues]

Agreed, it's done in Xtreme, but the result isn't vector as far as I can tell.
Saludos,
Bob.

[iamtheblues]

Egg, I have examined your .xar file and I can't work out how you achieved your results. I know you used the contour tool and transparencies, but I think we need to be told - well, I need to be told, anyway!
Saludos,
Bob.

[badmuffy]

Thankyou Egg I would like to see the instructions too. Also this is going to sound stupid but why is vector better?


The raster seems to do a good job but when I try to paste it back into Xara for some reason it doesn't look the same. It's really huge then when I scale it down the dots get all bunched together and I don't know how to get them apart. SO I must be doing somethign wrong.

[iamtheblues]

The great thing about vector as opposed to bitmap (raster) is that no matter how much the vector obect is enlarged, it still retains its crisp, clear lines, whereas a bitmap when enarged becomes blocky or pixellated, as it is made of pixels each of a single colour. The more the bitmap is enlarged, the more these pixels are pronounced. When drawing objects in Xara Xtreme, they are vector shapes. If you import a photo into Xara and enlarge it, you will see these pixels, which are never present in a vector object.
The attached example gives you an idea, although exporting the vector object for the web (ie this forum), it is displayed in raster format.
Saludos,
Bob.

[raynerj1]

The best way to illustrate the difference between vector and bitmap is this. Vector is connect the dots and bitmap is T.V. Look real close at your TV, the picture is made up of many differenct colored dots. Vector on the other hand just draws a shape to connect the "nodes" or dots in a connect the dot game. You can place the dots as far apart as you want, the shape will be the same. A vector drawing will look just as sharp on the head pin or on a billboard.

Enlarge a bitmap you have to put something between the dots (usually more of the same colored dots) which is why a bitmap gets blotchy when you try to enlarge it too far. When you reduce a bitmap, you start throwing pixels away.

[badmuffy]

I noticed that with the text in Xara that when you enlarge them its still always crisp no matter how big you make it.

Thanks for explaining.

[gwpriester]

The problem with most of these solutions is they do not screened halftone images. They are really same size dots with some fading into the background color.

The original image posted has dot that represents a continuous tone image that is darker in the middle and gets lighter on the outside. The dots are thicker in the center and thinner as they reach the outside.

The halftone process originally was a way of printing a continuous tone photograph with just black ink. The photographic art was rephotographed with a large copy camera that had a glass dot screen between the lithographic paper and the original image. The original image was passed through the glass screen and a pattern of solid color dots was created. The attached image is a greatly enlarged black and white halftone photo.

If we take Egg's example and apply Xtreme's Live Effects Tool > Color Filter > Threshold filter, you can see that the dots are all pretty much the same size and the shading effects is created with what appears to be a circular fill. The dots are smaller on the outside but not in the same diminishing way they are on the original image.

We can apply a threshold filter to the original image and you can see that it does resemble a halftone image.

Here is a link to a site that explains the halftone photographic process.

Hmm? Odd the way these images display.