dithering

Definition: Technique for simulating effect of many colours or shades by using a smaller number of colours or shades in e.g. monitors, LCD screens, printers and digital cameras. * Dithering patterns differ according to device and application: for photographic use, random or diffusion patterns are most effective.
Erratic chess-play
To understand dithering, it helps to recall the normal meaning of the word: lacking a definite pattern, unpredictable. Such are the properties needed when laying down the dots needed to create half-tone cells: if you filled them in a regular -- i.e. undithered -- way such as representing mid-tone gray with a chess-board, areas of equal tone would be covered in regular patterns. This is obviously undesirable.

Previous Term: distortion  Next Term: D-line