Screentones!

Hey everybody! :)
As you may know, screentones (german: Rasterfolie) are used in mangas to create shadings. It looks like different shades of  grey, but if you look closer, its an accumulation of black dots on white background. In my new picture I used screentones, so I wanted to do a small tutorial on how to use them (pictures will contain german, since thats the photoshop version I use!).

First off you need to a pattern of dots. You can create your own, but it's easier and faster to download it from somewhere. For example these screentones from Kita-Angel. Or you can just simply google for different screentone sheets.
Open a screentone as a new file in photoshop, go to "edit" (german: Bearbeiten) and pick "define pattern" (german: Muster festlegen):

Give it a name you like and now you can can already use it with the pattern stamp tool (german: Musterstemmpel-Werkzeug):

Use the tool like a normal brush. Remember you can use different settings and fill opacities. To clean up screentones which shouldn't be where they are, simply erase them with the Eraser tool (german: Radiergummi). Use the screentone to create shadings like I used it in my new picture:

                                                                  

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Also, you can even turn a whole picture into a screentone! For example, if you're making a manga and want a background picture. To show how it works, I use a picture of my cat ^-^

Open the picture in photoshop and go to the menu tab "Image" (german: Bild), to change the mode (german: Modus) to "Grayscale" (german: Graustufen):

Now go back to the Image menu and pick "Bitmap", which gives you a window where you can pick the method "Halftone Screen" (german: Halbtonraster) in the pop-up menu. The next window will let you pick frequency, angle and shape of the halftone screen:

Experiment as you like to create different types of screentones of your picture. And voila, you have your picture as a screentone!

Enjoy creating and using your own screentones! ^-^