Everything you need to know about Posterize
Posterize reduces the number of distinct color levels in your image, creating flat bands of color with hard transitions. This produces a bold, graphic poster-like effect reminiscent of screen printing, pop art, and vintage illustration styles.
Parameters
- Levels
Sets the number of distinct brightness levels per color channel (2–64). Lower values create more dramatic banding with fewer colors. At 2 levels, each channel becomes either full intensity or zero (like a 1-bit image per channel). Higher values (16–64) create subtler posterization with smoother gradients. - Mix
Blends the posterized result with the original image. At 0, no change is visible. At 1.0, the full posterization is applied. Use intermediate values for a subtle, partially quantized look.
How It Works
The filter independently quantizes each RGB channel by rounding brightness values to the nearest level. With 4 levels, for example, each channel can only be 0%, 33%, 67%, or 100% intensity. This creates visible "steps" in gradients and reduces the total number of possible colors.
Color Math
- 2 levels – 8 possible colors (2³)
- 4 levels – 64 possible colors (4³)
- 8 levels – 512 possible colors (8³)
- 16 levels – 4,096 possible colors (16³)
Tips
- Use 3–6 levels for bold pop art and screen-print aesthetics
- Use 8–16 levels for subtle stylization that retains more detail
- Combine with increased saturation for vibrant, graphic results
- Works great on high-contrast images with clear shapes and colors