Dithering can be used to reduce the weight of these frames, though image quality takes a hit.ĭithering is also used to avoid color banding caused by a restrictive color palette. An animated GIF is effectively many images (frames) in a container, displayed one after the other. The image below contains only 256 colors, with the dithering pattern visible in the magnified portion of the image: Tim Brookes / How-To GeekĪnimated GIFs depended on dithering to cut down on file size. In the early days of the web, dial-up speeds made data transfer a painful affair.Because a photo can have thousands or millions of colors, limiting which colors can be displayed can dramatically cut the file size.īy combining available colors in a restricted color space, dithering can convincingly reproduce a detailed image at a fraction of the file size. With the advent of the world wide web, dithering became a valuable tool for cutting down on file sizes. Dithering Saves Disk Space, Avoids Banding

Even today some papers still use dithering in their printing process, a phenomenon you can clearly see if you get close enough.

With more colors to work with, reproducing full-color photographs became more commonplace. Because publishers were limited by the number of colors they could print, dithering was used to expand the perceived range, add texture to an image, and produce better-looking comic strips and photographs.Īs printers became more sophisticated, dithering became a more powerful tool. This form of dithering has its roots in the print medium, particularly newspapers and early comic books.

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