what's the best way to get this fill?

Lichtenstein

I want to be able to 'paint' people's skin and other things with that pattern.

What's the best way to do that? to where the background of the red dots is transparent.

thanks

Theres a few ways to skin this cat, but you could do worse than research halftones. Steer clear of pop dots though ;)

I don't want to get halftones though.

Oh sorry, I didn't realise you knew the answer already ;) What do you want to use?

*edit* (must be nice) hehe

When you say you dont want to "get" halftones, I presume you mean a seperate program. Trust me that is not needed, you can do what you need (I think) through the regular Photoshop interface. As I say look for tutorials on PS and halftones, they will tell you more than I could hope to here.

I don't wanna be an asshat to you, nor do I want to give you a bum steer, perhaps if you tell me or explain to me why halftones are of no use I will learn something too

I meant 'use'. sorry about that.

What I mean is that I just want to use that pattern, but be able to 'paint' it. I don't want different tones, just one color.

I don't think I can explain it any better because I don't know too much about halftones or even what this is really called.

What I know about halftones is that it's like different shades of tiny circles that make up an image.

I just want one color, like a pattern, but I want it to be transparent around the dots. And I want to be able to use the brush tool and paint it, if possible.

Make a new document 10 x 10 pixels with a transparent background, paint a black dot with a semi hard edge. go to Edit>Define Custom Pattern. name your pattern.

Use the Pattern stamp tool (grouped with the Clone stamp tool) and paint using the pattern you just made..

If you keep this paint fill on a separate layer you can change the color to red by selecting the correct color as your foreground color and pressing Alt>Backspace to fill opaque pixels with foreground color. Or when you are making the pattern (10 x 10 pixel doc) just paint a red dot instead of a black one.

Good luck.

Sorry,

I missed something, If you want them offset like the image you posted then you will need to make the pattern bigger before defining it (Edit>Canvas size make it about twice as big 20 x 20 pixels) then use the offset filter (Filter>Custom>offset) at 10 pixels x axis and 10 pixels y axis. then paint another dot in the resulting center, THEN define the pattern. this should give you offset rows of dots.

good luck.

thanks I'll try it out