Halftone is an analog printing technique that builds whole images out of lots of little dots—think of the way print newspaper ads or comics appear. The resulting look is polished, while still revealing a bit of its granular origins. But you don’t need paper and ink to get this look. The Alter Ego Halftone Effect for Photoshop, created by Pixelbuddha, allows you to experiment with the same aesthetic on photos, illustrations, and text. Choose from different halftone patterns, gradients, and textures to easily create perfectly imperfect results.

We asked artist and designer Mark Pernice to experiment with the Alter Ego Halftone Effect. “First I played with applying the effect to the whole piece of art,” says Mark. “But quickly realized it was more interesting to apply two patterns to select portions.” Keeping the background images and ghostly figures on their own layers and applying different tweaks of the Alter Ego Effect to each resulted in just the right amount of “vibrate-y-ness,” he says. Check out the artwork he made with it above, and read on to learn how you can make your own creations.