[HN Gopher] Image Dithering: Eleven Algorithms and Source Code (...
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       Image Dithering: Eleven Algorithms and Source Code (2012)
        
       Author : Bogdanp
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2025-10-24 19:38 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (tannerhelland.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (tannerhelland.com)
        
       | Panzerschrek wrote:
       | It's also worth to mention noise-based dithering - where some
       | noise pattern is added atop of the image and then rounding is
       | performed. Usually some sort of blue noise is used for this
       | approach.
        
         | pasteldream wrote:
         | Agreed - blue noise dithering is very commonly used in computer
         | graphics because it's cheap and great, but it might be worth
         | mentioning that it's a kind of ordered dithering, which is
         | mentioned in the article.
         | 
         | Christoph Peters's free blue noise textures are the most
         | commonly used, for people who can't be bothered running void
         | and cluster themselves:
         | https://momentsingraphics.de/BlueNoise.html
        
       | bad_username wrote:
       | Dithering has similar importance in digital audio. Dithered 8-bit
       | audio sounds way better than non-dithered (harsh artifacts are
       | replaced with tolerable white noise, and quiet details are
       | preserved). Higher end digital equipment even applies dithering
       | to high-bit samples, as do plug-ins in digital audio
       | workstations.
        
       | alejohausner wrote:
       | Ulichney (who wrote the book on halftoning) came up with ordered
       | dithering matrices that give much nicer results than Bayer's, as
       | good error as diffusion, and parallelizable. Look up "void and
       | cluster".
        
       | gnabgib wrote:
       | (2012) Popular in
       | 
       | 2016 (199 points, 61 comments)
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11886318
       | 
       | 2017 (125 points, 53 comments)
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15413377
        
       | AndrewStephens wrote:
       | It is surprisingly difficult to get really crisp dithering on
       | modern displays, you have to do it on the client to match 1-1 the
       | user's display. Notice that the pre-rendered examples on this
       | page actually look a little blurry if you magnify them. This is
       | not really a problem unless you really want the crispness of the
       | original Mac screen.
       | 
       | A few years ago I got annoyed with this and made a little web-
       | component that attempts to make really sharp 1-bit dithered
       | images by rendering the image on the client to match whatever
       | display device the user has.
       | 
       | https://sheep.horse/2023/1/improved_web_component_for_pixel-...
        
       | Affric wrote:
       | Nostalgic.
       | 
       | Important for lo-fi displays and printing etc
       | 
       | I do think that well dithered images looked better in some texts
       | than colour images which had more wow but were more distracting.
        
       | kevinsync wrote:
       | I use a Photoshop plugin for complex dithering ( _DITHERTONE Pro_
       | [0] -- this is NOT AN AD lol, I 'm not the creator, just a happy
       | customer and visual nerd)
       | 
       | I'm only dropping it in here because the marketing site for the
       | plugin demonstrates a lot of really interesting, full-color, wide
       | spectrum of use-cases for different types of dithering beyond
       | what we normally assume is dithering.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.doronsupply.com/product/dithertone-pro
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-27 23:00 UTC)