Make / Effects & techniques
Floyd–Steinberg dithering: follow the gradient.
Floyd–Steinberg spreads the error from each light-or-dark decision into four neighboring cells. Try it when you want a finely dispersed texture across gradients, faces or shaded objects.
Remix this example ↗
One source. Three algorithms.
900 × 900 source · scale 3 · identical colors and contrast
Make this look in three steps
- Open the blue ribbon example with Floyd–Steinberg already selected.
- Keep Scale low enough to retain the source detail that matters. Compare the brightest and darkest areas before adding contrast.
- Choose your final colors, export and check for unwanted smoothing in the application where you place the image.
The four error weights in Make
Make passes 7/16 of the error to the cell on the right, then 3/16, 5/16 and 1/16 to the below-left, below and below-right cells. These weights sum to one away from image boundaries. The renderer scans each row from left to right; it does not alternate the scan direction.
Why a smooth gradient still has texture
Intermediate tones are represented by the local balance of light and dark marks. A region looks smoother from a distance while its individual pixels remain visible close up. Some images reveal directional or worm-like structures. A lower scale or a different source contrast can change how noticeable those structures are.
Color is a separate choice
The blue example uses duotone after the dither pattern is rendered. In Make’s source-color mode, brightness still drives mark placement and foreground marks take their color from the source. This is not general-purpose indexed-palette quantization.
Free, Pro and your source files
Processing happens in your browser. Free image exports include 1× and 2× PNG and publish a small preview to the public community gallery. Pro skips gallery publication and adds 3× PNG, SVG and silent WebM video export. Use material you have the rights to upload.
Try it in Make ↗