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CMYK Effect

Turns any picture into a four-color halftone print, with rosette dots, shifted plates and a scanned paper surface.

Halftone print version of the portrait: coarse cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots on textured paper against a dark blue dotted background.
Photo of a person in a green houndstooth jacket with fuzzy lime hair, a face covered in pink and blue blocks, and orange cutout eyes, on blue.
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Made with CMYK Print

Works in

The CMYK effect rebuilds your image from four halftone plates, cyan, magenta, yellow and black, printed as rough dots on textured paper. Colors break into rosettes, plates drift out of register, and ink spreads. You can change the dot size, ink density, misregistration, paper color and how much scan texture shows.

Same effect, different settings

12 photos, each with its own settings. Try it on yours

  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a woman in white cat-eye sunglasses
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a smile with gold grills
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of blue cornflowers
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a man with pink hair on green
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of the back of a blond buzz cut
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a man reaching into a blue sky
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a woman with a black bob and red earrings
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a man with a buzz cut against red and blue
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a basketball player mid-jump
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a woman in blue glasses
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a woman in orange glasses and a knit collar
  • CMYK Effect on a photo of a man in a spiked blue hood

Use CMYK Effect in Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Affinity or Figma

The plugins are free with an account. Paid plans add bigger renders and your own filters. See pricing

Settings worth touching

Screen Pitch
Sets the spacing of the halftone grid. Low values give fine, tight dots; high values give big, coarse dots you can see from afar.
Misregistration
Shifts the four ink plates apart, so colored edges and fringes appear where the plates no longer line up.
Texture & Tone
Fades out paper grain, scan texture and the lifted-black scan tone together, leaving a clean, full-range print at zero.

Frequently asked questions

What is a CMYK effect?

It imitates offset printing: your image is split into cyan, magenta, yellow and black plates, each printed as a grid of dots at its own angle, which forms rosettes where the colors overlap.

How do I add a CMYK effect in Photoshop?

Install Nexus for Photoshop, pick the look in the panel and render it as a new layer, or apply it to a Smart Object as a live Smart Filter you can edit later.

Can I use the CMYK effect in Illustrator?

Yes. Store a selection as the source and run the look. The result comes back as an embedded image, not vector paths, because this effect outputs pixels only.

How do I make a CMYK halftone effect look cleaner?

Lower Texture & Tone toward zero. It removes paper grain, scan texture and the lifted-black, softened-white scan tone, leaving crisp halftone dots with a full tonal range.

Can I try the CMYK print effect for free?

Yes. Open the look in the Nexus web editor and try it on your own image without an account. Exporting needs a free account, which exports images up to 720px and video up to 720px with the Nexus mark.

Related effects

Try CMYK Effect in your browser

Free to try. Exporting needs a free account.

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