All effects and presets

Effect

Photocopy

High-contrast photocopy grain and toner response.

Office photocopiers turn continuous tone into high-contrast toner on paper, with crushed mids, blown whites and a restless grain. Artists of the 1970s and 1980s used copiers as printmaking tools, feeding the same sheet through again for degradation and overlay.

The look is bureaucratic and punk at once. Contrast and grit do most of the work.

Photocopy example
Example

Properties

  • Toner crush

    midtone compression toward black/white

    Range
    0 to 1
    Default
    0.55

  • Threshold

    copy threshold pivot

    Range
    0 to 1
    Default
    0.48

  • Speckle

    toner dust amount

    Range
    0 to 1
    Default
    0.18

  • Streaks

    roller streak strength

    Range
    0 to 1
    Default
    0.12

  • Misregistration

    RGB channel offset

    Range
    0 to 0.02
    Default
    0.004

  • Generations

    copy-of-copy degradation

    Range
    1 to 5
    Default
    2

  • Seed

    Range
    0 to 1
    Default
    0.42

Command line

Requires Rethings Pro. Install the tool from Rethings → Install Command Line Tool… 

rethings apply --effect photocopy --set crush=0.55 --set threshold=0.48 -i input.jpg -o output.png

Gallery

  • Photocopy example 1
  • Photocopy example 2
  • Photocopy example 3
  • Photocopy example 4
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  • Photocopy example 31
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  • Photocopy example 38
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  • Photocopy example 45