Stipplism Stipplism

Live stipple effect

  • Symbol stipple includes scale, color and orientation
  • Add stipple effect to vectors and text
  • Live stipple effect on gradients
  • Quality control to adjust uniformity

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Stipple effect

Instantly apply a non-destructive stipple live effect to any new or old artwork including vector and text. Various quality controls to adjust uniformity and precision.

Stipple dots sized on background tint

Symbol stipple effect

Comprehensive control of individual symbols including scale, color and orientation. Encourages limitless experimentation with symbols to feed your creativity.

Symbol stipple follow path direction

Live stippling

Instantly apply a non destructive stipple live effect to any new or old artwork including vector and text.

Live stippling dots in Illustrator

How you can get started

Creating an ‘IT’ inspired poster with Stipplism

Clowns always seem to be the theme of some sort of horror movie. Some of Read more »

Astute Graphics training series

As part of the subscription, we want to give you product training that Read more »

#10MinSkills - Making bubbles with Stipplism

Follow Tony Harmer as he shows how to use our Stipplism tool to Read more »

A live effects plugin 

A playful twist on a traditional technique – Stipplism allows you to explore dot and shape patterns faster and easier than you could ever imagine.

Seamlessly interacting with Illustrator’s native tools to produce high quality vector artwork.

Take your stipple game up a level. Warning: seriously addictive!

All 21 plugins and a year of updates for a year.

Subscribe now »
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Stipplism example design

Stipplism technical specifications

Common live effect benefits

  • Apply both Stipplism live effects to any selected artwork

  • Non-destructive fully-compatible Illustrator live effect

  • Apply to selection / targeted layer / fill / stroke

  • Interact with all standard and other Astute Graphics live effect additions (eg. Phantasm and InkQuest color/ink adjustments) via standard Appearance Panel

  • Store and re-apply with single click using standard Graphic Styles

  • Results are shared at full quality with Illustrator users lacking Stipplism plugin

Stipple (live effect)

  • Quality (1 to 11); determines the uniformity of dot placement – lower value produces organic random results

  • Density; control the spacing between the dots, relative to dot size

  • Dot Size with High Density Adjustment option (ensuring darker regions are reproduced faithfully)

  • Roundness; default perfect round vector dots may realistically distorted to represent real media stipples

  • Detail; add additional detail to dot profiles to further recreate manual creation

  • Color and Sample Object; set dots to specified color or each dot samples underlying artwork color

  • Overprint; set dots to overprint for prepress purposes (with automatic white overprint protection)

  • Warning/reset for anticipated slow processing (typically the result of high quality settings, increased density or large stipple area)

Symbol Stipple (live effect)

  • Random dot placement controls including reproducible "Seed", store and recall

  • Quality (1 to 11); determines the uniformity of symbol placement – lower value produces organic random results

  • Density; control the spacing between the symbols, relative to symbols scale

  • Select symbol for basis of stipple result based on symbol name

  • Include Variants; permits multiple symbol use within single Symbol Stipple live effect for limitless possibilities

  • Overall Scale; resize symbols within Stipple

  • Vary Scale; allow each symbol to be randomly scaled within user-defined +/- factor range

  • Overall Rotation; uniform rotation of symbols within Stipple

  • Vary Rotation; allow each symbol to be randomly rotated within user-defined +/- angle

  • Rotation Follows Path and Ignore Largest Path; orientate each symbol's angle based on closest vector path found in underlying artwork

  • Use Registration Point; optionally use origin point defined in each symbol on which to base any scaling and rotation

  • Colorize and Sample Object; optionally recolor symbol(s) applied with either single color or sampled color based on underlying artwork

  • Warning/reset for anticipated slow processing (typically the result of high quality settings, increased density or large stipple area)

Create symbol variants

  • Handy function to quickly set selection of objects as symbol variants for use in Symbol Stipple live effect

Select Stipplism effects

  • Quickly select/locate objects with live Stipple or Symbol Stipple effect applied