Free halftone generator for DTF and screen printing
Turn fades and large fills into dots at the size you will print, with the line count, angle and dot shape you choose. Download a 300 dpi transparent PNG or an SVG. Free, no signup, and your artwork never leaves this computer.
Dots sized for the print, not the screen
A halftone made at the wrong size is the most common way to get mush. Ten-inch artwork dotted at 35 lines per inch has 350 dots across; the same file stretched to fourteen inches has dots 40% bigger than you designed. So the first setting here is the printed width, and everything else is measured against it: the dot spacing in millimetres, the smallest dot, and how many pixels each dot has to take its shape.
Each dot inks exactly the share of its cell that the tone asks for, whatever the shape, including past the point where round dots start to touch. That matters for DTF, where a mid-grey that prints darker than intended is a mid-grey you paid ink for.
What it gives you
- A transparent PNG at 300 dpi, dots in the artwork's own colours for DTF, or in black for a film positive.
- An SVG with every round or square dot as a vector shape, for film output at the device's own resolution.
- How much ink it saves against printing the same area solid.
- A preview on a garment colour, because a halftone that looks right on white can look nothing like it on black.
How to choose the settings, with the reasons, is in how to halftone artwork for DTF and screen printing.
Questions
What lines per inch should I use for DTF or screen printing?
There is no single right number, and anyone quoting one is quoting their own press. As a starting range, shirt work usually sits between about 25 and 55 lines per inch: coarser for a soft, vintage look and for dark garments, finer for detail. For screen printing the mesh count limits what a screen can hold, so ask your screen supplier or run a test. The tool warns when the dots get too small to hold their shape at your resolution.
Why halftone a DTF print at all?
A solid DTF print is a sheet of ink and adhesive on the shirt: heavy, warm to wear and prone to cracking over large areas. Breaking large fills and fades into dots lets the fabric through, so the print is lighter and softer, uses less ink and film adhesive, and fades smoothly into the shirt instead of stopping at a hard edge.
What does “printing on a dark garment” change?
Which parts of the picture become dots. On a dark garment the light parts of the design are what print; dark areas drop out and let the shirt show through, which is how a “distressed” print on black works. On a light garment it is the other way round. “Anything” uses only the artwork's own transparency, so soft edges and fades in a transparent PNG become dots.
Is the SVG better than the PNG?
For screen film, often yes: every dot is a real shape, so the film is printed at your output device's own resolution instead of ours. For DTF, the 300 dpi PNG is what the RIP expects. The SVG is offered for round and square dots.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The artwork is decoded and dotted by code running on this page. Nothing is sent anywhere.