# Risograph effect generator

Your photo split into two to four spot inks, each screened in coarse dots, grain or lines and printed a little off register. The photo stays on your device; the SVG has one layer per ink.

Open the generator: https://morph.ogeny.app/risograph/

## Design choices

- **Limited spot colours** (`color.limited-spot`): Two or three flat inks. Set by “Limited spot colours”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/
- **Fluorescent & neon** (`color.neon`): Day-glo inks and RGB brights. “Ink colours”: Fluorescent pink and blue. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/fluorescent-and-neon/
- **Halftone & Ben-Day dots** (`surface.halftone`): Dot screens made visible. Set by “Halftone & Ben-Day dots”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/
- **Grain & noise** (`surface.grain`): Film grain, riso speckle, dithering noise. “Halftone & Ben-Day dots”: Grain. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grain-and-noise/
- **Misregistration & overprint** (`surface.misregistration`): Inks slightly out of register; transparent overprints. Set by “Misregistration & overprint”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/misregistration-and-overprint/
- **Isolated object** (`layout.isolated-object`): A single object or figure isolated on a plain ground. “Backdrop”: Dropped to the paper. Measured on the opening picture: ground showing 75% with “Dropped to the paper”, 34% with “As photographed” and 70% with “A flat ink”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/isolated-object/
- **Flat fields** (`color.flat-fields`): Unmodulated areas of colour. “Backdrop”: A flat ink. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/
- **Treated photography** (`image.treated-photo`): Duotone, high-contrast or posterised photographs. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/treated-photography/
- **Risograph** (`medium.risograph`): Stencil duplicator printing with soy inks. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/risograph/
- **Light ground** (`color.light-ground`): Paper-white or pale fields dominate. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/

## How it works

- The photo is separated into two to four spot inks by its colour, one drum per ink; each ink is its own screen at its own angle, and the inks multiply where they overprint, so their overlaps make the new hues.
- Coarse dots, grain or lines that drop out to bare paper in the highlights; every drum lands a little off register, and coverage is uneven.

It never does:

- No embedded photo and no smooth gradients: every tone is dots, grain or lines in flat inks.
- No 2×2 grid of one portrait in four colourways; inks and papers are named by what they are, never by a maker.

## Controls

- `count` Limited spot colours (2–4, default 3): How many inks, one drum each.
- `inks` Ink colours (chosen | drums | pink-blue | orange-teal | green-pink | red-navy; default chosen): The palette picked for the page, or drum inks; with a third and fourth drum, yellow and a deep ink join the pair.
- `paper` Paper (palette | off-white | white | cream | grey | pink | blue | yellow; default palette): Uncoated stock: the inks are transparent, so a coloured paper tints every one of them.
- `screen` Halftone & Ben-Day dots (dots | grain | lines; default dots): How each ink fakes its tones: dots on a grid at the ink’s own angle, scattered grain, or ruled lines.
- `ruling` Screen ruling (40–100, default 70): Dots or lines across the picture: fewer means a coarser screen.
- `offset` Misregistration & overprint (0–1, default 0.4): How far each drum lands off register.
- `grit` Grain & noise (0–1, default 0.4): Uneven coverage: blotchy, streaked ink, irregular dots and stray specks.
- `backdrop` Backdrop (photo | paper | flat; default photo): Behind the subject: the photo’s own backdrop, bare paper, or a solid of one ink. Busy photos keep their backdrop. Dropped to the paper: Measured on the opening picture: ground showing 75% with “Dropped to the paper”, 34% with “As photographed” and 70% with “A flat ink”.
- `vivid` Colour (0–2, default 1): How strongly the photo’s hues steer the inks; 0 separates by tone alone.

## About Risograph & Indie Print Culture

A risograph is a stencil duplicator: a drum of soy-based ink pushes colour through a cut master onto uncoated paper, one colour per drum. Since the late 2000s, zine makers, small presses and print studios have used it for posters and books because it is cheap per copy and the inks are bright, flat and see-through. The look comes from its limits: few colours, coarse screens, layers that never quite line up, and coverage that varies from sheet to sheet.

This generator works out how much of each ink every part of your photo needs, assuming the inks overprint as they do on paper, where two transparent inks make a third colour. Each ink then gets its own screen at its own angle, its own small shift off register and its own uneven inking. Pick the inks from a palette or from common drum colours, choose a paper, and the file keeps each ink on its own layer.

Risograph & Indie Print Culture in Stylogeny (2008–today): https://stylogeny.com/styles/risograph-indie/

## Recipe

```json
{
  "tool": "risograph",
  "v": 1,
  "seed": 1,
  "format": "portrait",
  "params": {
    "count": 3,
    "inks": "chosen",
    "paper": "palette",
    "screen": "dots",
    "ruling": 70,
    "offset": 0.4,
    "grit": 0.4,
    "backdrop": "photo",
    "vivid": 1
  },
  "palette": "risograph-indie"
}
```