DITHERING ALGORITHM
Atkinson Dithering Online
The original Macintosh look.
Bill Atkinson wrote this variant at Apple for the first Macintosh, and it is the texture you remember from MacPaint and early black and white Mac software.
Its trick is that it deliberately throws away part of the error. Where Floyd-Steinberg passes on all of it, Atkinson spreads only six eighths across six neighbouring pixels and discards the remaining quarter. Losing that error means highlights blow out to white and shadows crush to black instead of being held in the middle.
The result is punchier and cleaner than a faithful reproduction would be, with open white space and crisp clusters of dots. It flatters high-contrast subjects and is the natural choice for a 1-bit or Game Boy look.
Black and white, Game Boy greens, and any image that should read as graphic rather than photographic.
Other dithering algorithms
Try it with a palette
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