Dither generator

What dithering is

Dithering fakes tones you don’t have. With only two colors, a dither scatters dark and light pixels so that, from a distance, they average into grays. It started as a fix for screens and printers that could show very few colors, and it is now a look of its own: early Macintosh graphics, Game Boy screens, zines and a lot of current web and motion design.

There are two big families. Ordered dithering compares each pixel to a fixed pattern of thresholds, which gives a regular, woven texture. Error diffusion rounds each pixel to the nearest available color and passes the rounding error on to the pixels that haven’t been drawn yet, which gives a more organic grain.

Bayer, Floyd–Steinberg and Atkinson

Bayer dithering uses a threshold matrix described by Bryce Bayer in 1973. The 2×2, 4×4 and 8×8 versions in this tool repeat their pattern every 2, 4 or 8 pixels: the bigger the matrix, the more tones it can show and the finer the cross-hatching.

Floyd–Steinberg (Robert Floyd and Louis Steinberg, 1976) spreads all of each pixel’s error to four neighbors. It keeps the most detail from a photo and is the default in many image editors.

Atkinson dithering comes from Bill Atkinson’s work on the original Apple Macintosh. It spreads only three quarters of the error, to six neighbors, and drops the rest. Highlights and shadows lose detail and the midtones get crisp: that is the high-contrast early Mac look.

Interleaved noise uses a noise function as its threshold instead of a matrix, for an even grain without a visible grid.

What each setting changes

The presets are Game Boy (four greens, Bayer 4×4), Atkinson Mac (black and white, Atkinson) and Violet noise (Bayer 8×8 on a noise field).

• Source: an image you upload, or a noise field with its own scale and seed.
• Algorithm: Bayer 2×2, 4×4, 8×8, interleaved noise, Floyd–Steinberg or Atkinson.
• Pixel size: how big each dither pixel is drawn. 1 is the finest; 4 to 6 makes the pattern part of the design.
• Levels: how many tones sit between the two colors. 2 is pure two-color dithering; 4 gives a Game Boy-like ramp.
• Contrast and Brightness: adjust the image before it is dithered.
• Shadows and Highlights: the two colors of the palette, with the levels in between.

What designers use it for

• Retro and lo-fi visuals: posters, album covers, social posts with a 1-bit or Game Boy look.
• Images that stay light: a two-color dither compresses well as a PNG, which helps for web pages and email.
• Textures and gradients for motion design, where a dithered gradient avoids banding.
• Print with one or two inks, where a dither replaces a halftone screen.

Tips

Raise the contrast before dithering: error diffusion is honest about flat images and makes them look muddy. For portraits, Floyd–Steinberg at pixel size 1 or 2 keeps faces readable; for graphic posters, Bayer with a bigger pixel size gives a stronger pattern. Pick colors with a clear difference in brightness, not just hue, or the dither disappears.

Build the dithering tool you need

Need a dither that uses your brand palette, works on video frames, or adds a halftone pass? Describe it and Blueprint builds the tool, with the same kind of controls every time. Ask for changes in plain words; every change is saved as a version.