Dithering

Dithering is a responsive design technique that helps overcome the constraints of limited colours on specific devices. It adjusts pixels of various shades to create an illusion of a third colour unsupported on that device. A standard colour photograph can contain an infinite range of colour values. While dithering, the colour range of the image gets reduced to the 256 colours seen in 8-bit images. Dithering can distribute pixels in patterns to simulate grey shades when converting a grayscale image to black and white. Thus, a gradient could appear as a fine mix of black and white dots, creating the illusion of a smooth transition despite using only two colours. Dithering is relevant in different situations of limited colour palettes, like gradient banding, image compression, and printing.