Video Effects
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Halftone effect for video and photos

Turn a video or photo into a grid of halftone dots that grow with the light, set them with the controls and compare them with the original, then open your own file and export it at full resolution. It runs in your browser: your file is never uploaded. In the editor, it is the Grid pattern effect.

  • Free
  • No upload
  • No account needed
  • No watermark
  • MP4, WebM, PNG, JPEG, WebP
A woman in an ivory linen dress under a stone arch hung with leaves and white flowers, the right half of the frame drawn as light halftone dots on black.

Grid pattern

Amount
Style
Cell size
Min size
Max size
Background
Open your own fileOpen this look in the editor

How to add a halftone effect to a video online

  1. Open your video or photo

    Choose Open your own file: the editor opens with the effect, ready for your file (videos as MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV; photos as JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF). It opens in your browser, and nothing is uploaded.

  2. Set the dots and compare

    Choose dots or tiles, the cell size, the dots' smallest and largest size, and how far the picture behind them darkens. Compare shows the original beside the result; play a video to see the dots follow it.

  3. Export it

    In the editor, export the video as MP4 or WebM, or the photo as PNG, JPEG or WebP, at its full resolution, with no watermark.

Dots that grow with the light

Dots draws a grid of round dots, one in each cell, each as large as its cell's brightness calls for: none, or the smallest size you set, in the darkest cells, and large enough to touch their neighbours in the brightest. That is how a halftone shows the tones of a picture, and here it works on every frame of a video, a halftone generator for moving pictures as well as photos.

The dots are grey to white, brighter in brighter cells, and drawn smooth at any size, so a small preview is as light as the export.

Size, Min size and Max size

Size sets the grid's cell, from 4 to 80 pixels on a 1080p frame, scaled with the resolution: a 4K export has the same grid as the small preview.

Min size and Max size set how large the dots are in the darkest and the brightest cells, as a share of the cell: at a Min size of 0 the darkest cells have no dot, and at a Max size of 100 the brightest dots touch.

Over the picture, or on black

Background sets how far the picture behind the dots darkens: at 0 the dots sit over the picture, and at 100, with Amount at 100, only the dots show, light on black. Amount sets how strongly they are drawn.

Mosaic tiles

Style set to Tiles fills each cell with its own average colour between thin dark grid lines, turning the whole frame into a mosaic. It covers the whole picture: it can't pick out a face or a region to hide.

Halftone, dither and ASCII

A halftone keeps one dot to a cell and changes its size; a dither keeps its dots one size and changes how many there are; ASCII draws each cell as a character. The editor has all three, and they combine: by default the grid applies as the picture is read, so ASCII can go over it, and a colour grade, glows, scanlines and grain go over the dots.

Your files stay on your device

Everything happens right on your device, in your browser. Your videos and photos are opened, edited and saved there, and never sent anywhere.

Because nothing is uploaded, your files are safe: nothing can leak, and no one else, not even us, ever sees them. You don't need an account: one holds only your email address and the AI agents you let in, and signing in keeps a single cookie. An agent's instructions to your editor pass through our server and are deleted as soon as the editor has carried them out; your files never do. Without cookies, the site counts visits and a few choices, such as a preset or effect you pick and the format you export to, but never which files you open or anything in them.

Exports leave out hidden details such as where a video was recorded, and a shared link carries only your settings, never your file.

Files and browsers

Opens MP4, MOV, WebM and MKV videos and JPEG, PNG, WebP and AVIF photos, and exports MP4 or WebM, or PNG, JPEG or WebP, at full resolution, keeping the original sound where the browser can. Works in current Chrome and Edge on a computer or Android, in current Firefox on a computer and in Safari 26 or later; HDR video is converted to standard range.

Questions about the halftone effect

Choose Open your own file above to open the editor with the effect, open your video there, set the dots and export it as MP4 or WebM. In the editor, it is the Grid pattern effect under Add effect, with Style set to Dots.

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