Greys crushed to toner black, blown out whites, specks and scratches. The look of a flyer that has been through the copier a few too many times.
Open the editor with this effect
The photocopier shaped the look of punk flyers, club nights, protest posters and zines for decades. It was never designed for photos, and that is exactly why it looks so good on them. Greys vanish, blacks go deep and flat, and every copy picks up a little more dust, toner specks and the odd scratch from the glass.
A copier has very little range in the middle. Light greys fall to white and darker greys fill in to black, so a soft photo turns into hard, graphic shapes.
The glass and the drum are never quite clean. Dust and small scratches print along with the image, especially in the white areas, where they show the most.
Each new generation pushes it further. A copy of a copy loses more midtones and gains more marks, which is how flyers end up looking worn before anyone has handled them.
Start with a photo that has a strong subject and clear light. Flat, grey photos turn into mud when the midtones are crushed.
Set the threshold by the face or the main shape, not the background. If the subject reads, the rest can go to pure black or white.
Keep the dust light. A few marks feel real, a blizzard of them feels like a filter.
For a heavier, more worn copy, add grain or a coarse dither on top. That is how the look on the grunge page is built.
Open the editor from this page. The photocopy tone and dust are already applied. Drop in your photo.
Adjust contrast and brightness until the subject sits right on the edge between black and white.
Export PNG, or move it into the studio and set a title over it. Flyer and poster templates are a quick way to finish the piece.
Yes. Xerox is the brand that made the photocopier famous, so people use both names for the same high contrast, toner speckled look.
Both start from the same crushed photocopy tone. This page adds dust and scratches for a cleaner, single generation copy. The grunge page adds heavy grain for a more worn, distressed texture.
Yes, and it works well, because the image is already mostly pure black and white. Export at full resolution on Pro so the copier has clean edges to work with.