MotionShine01 / Floyd-Steinberg
Smooth and fine
The difference between each pixel and the colour it gets is spread to its neighbours, giving even, grainy shades.
Free tool
Dither generator, few colours, all the shades.
Dither a photo into a handful of colours and let patterns of pixels make the shades in between, the look of early Macs, handheld consoles and newspaper photos. Pick Floyd-Steinberg, Atkinson or an ordered Bayer pattern, a palette, and how many pixels across, then save a crisp PNG. It runs in this tab, so your picture is never uploaded.
Picture
The effect is drawn in your browser. Your picture is never uploaded.
Three methods
Spread the error, or follow a pattern.
02 / Atkinson
Crisp and light
Only part of the difference is passed on, so highlights stay clean and the result looks sharper, as on early Macs.
03 / Bayer
Ordered patterns
A fixed matrix of thresholds makes regular cross-hatch patterns, the retro game look.
Questions
Good to know.
Why set pixels across?
Dithering works on pixels, so the pattern is made at that width and scaled up without smoothing. Fewer pixels across give a chunky retro look; more give a fine one.
Can I use my own two colours?
Yes. Choose Two colours of your own and set the ink and paper.
Can I get dots instead of pixels?
Choose a halftone effect, or open the halftone generator.
Is my picture uploaded?
No. Everything happens in this tab.