Cut a photo down to a handful of flat tones, so smooth gradients turn into bold bands of colour. The screen print and pop poster look.
Open the editor with this effect
Posterizing cuts a photo down to a small number of tones. Smooth gradients turn into bold, flat bands, and the image starts to look like a screen print, a travel poster or a stencil. The name comes from the posters it imitates, which were printed with a few flat inks rather than continuous tone.
Every colour channel is split into a fixed number of levels. A pixel is rounded to the nearest level, so all the slightly different shades in between collapse into one.
With many levels the photo looks almost normal, with a little banding in the sky. With four or five levels it turns graphic. With two levels each channel is on or off, giving a loud, eight colour image.
Unlike dithering, posterize does not try to hide the steps. The flat areas and hard edges are the point.
Start around four to six levels. That is usually where a photo stops looking like a photo and starts looking designed.
Raise contrast first. A flat photo posterizes into a few muddy steps, while a contrasty one gives clean, distinct shapes.
Simple compositions work best. One subject against a plain sky becomes a poster. A crowded scene becomes noise.
For a print feel, add grain or a halftone on top so the flat areas pick up some texture.
Open the editor from this page and the sample is already posterized. Drop in your own photo.
Set the number of levels in the effects list, anywhere from two to sixteen.
Take it into the studio if you want type on top. Poster templates are a quick start.
Export PNG for the web, or a print-ready PDF from the studio.
Threshold gives exactly two tones, black and white. Posterize keeps colour and gives as many levels as you choose, so it is a softer, more colourful version of the same idea.
Posterize keeps the photo's own colours. For a fixed set of inks, use a palette dither or the duotone effect instead.
Yes, posterize is on the free tier. Free exports carry a small watermark at web resolution, and Pro removes it and adds full resolution.