Tutorial: Technical Dithering, Quick and Easy

This tutorial is a technical tutorial on doing quick dithering. The directions given are for Photoshop, but could be applied to Paint Shop Pro, or another graphics program that supports layers.

This tutorial is not here to tell you how to make your dithering look beautiful or how to make it enhance your image. This tutorial will only explain the technical aspects of doing rapid dithering, so as to avoid the tedium of placing each pixel individually and spending time counting to determine correct positioning.

  1. We will begin with a cleaned up outline of a shape. The outline is on its own layer and the white background is on another.

    Image of a black outlined shape.

  2. With solid colours, block in all the different depths of shading you will use. The borders of these shades will be tweaked as you do your dithering, but keep in mind that when we add dithering, your shadows will expand into your lighter colours. You may wish to make your shadows slightly smaller than if you intended to leave your image with solid shading.

    Image of a solid shaded shape.

  3. From the Dither pattern section select the 50% dithered pattern. This dithering pattern alternates black and transparent pixels.

    Paste the pattern over your image, in a new layer. Make sure the pattern snaps to the top left corner of your canvas.

    Image of your image with the dithered pattern on a new layer.

  4. Duplicate the dithered pattern until it covers your entire image.

    Image of your image with the dithered pattern covering your entire image.

  5. For small images you will often only need to dither at 50%. Since this is a slightly larger image, we will use two additional levels of dithering. Choose two uniform looking dithered patterns.

    Image of our three dithered pattern.

  6. Duplicate the additional patterns over your whole image, placing them on their own layers. Make sure that they also snap to the top left corner of your canvas. This will ensure that they all line up with each other, which will be important when we begin dithering.

    Image of our image with a another dithered pattern.

  7. Hide all your dithering layers except your 50% layer. Select the 50% dithering layer so that it is active. Using the Magic Wand tool, select the black pixels.

    Image of a close up of the dithered layer over the image, Magic Wand tool selected.

  8. Turn off the visibililty of your dithered layer. Make the layer with your image active. This will leave you with your image, and selection borders visible around each pixel. Hide the selection borders using Ctrl+H or View:Extras. This will allow you to properly see your image when viewing it at 100%.

    Image of image with dithered selection.

  9. Begin painting over your image where you wish dithering to appear. You need to choose whether to paint lighter colours over dark, or darker colours over light. I prefer dark on light, but which every you choose, be consistent. A 2px or larger brush will usually work nicely.

    Image of dithering.

  10. Once you have completed your 50% dithering, zoom out and assess your image.

    Image of completed 50% dithering.

  11. Repeat steps 7 through 9 for your other levels of dithering.

    Image of additional levels of dithering completed.

  12. Your dithering is complete.

    Image of your completed piece.

Please let me know if you have found this tutorial helpful, or if you have any suggestions for improving it.