Atkinson dithering online

About Atkinson dithering

Atkinson dithering was created by Bill Atkinson at Apple for the original 1984 Macintosh and its MacPaint software. It diffuses error to six neighbours, but only distributes 6/8 of the error — the remaining quarter is simply discarded.

Throwing away part of the error gives Atkinson its signature look: crisp, high-contrast images where highlights and shadows blow out to pure white and black while midtones keep a clean, airy texture. It is the go-to choice for the nostalgic early-Mac aesthetic.

Diffusion kernel

      *   1   1
  1   1   1
      1          (÷8)

“*” marks the current pixel; numbers show how much of its quantization error each neighbour receives.

Best for

• Retro Mac / MacPaint style
• Logos and high-contrast art
• Images with lots of white space

How to dither an image

1. Add your image. Click Upload image, drag a file onto the preview, or paste with Ctrl/⌘+V. JPG, PNG, WebP and GIF work.
2. Pick an algorithm and palette. Error diffusion (Floyd–Steinberg, Atkinson…) for photos, Bayer for a retro crosshatch.
3. Tune it. Raise pixel size for chunkier pixels; adjust brightness and contrast to control which tones become dark or light.
4. Download. Export a lossless PNG at up to 8× with crisp nearest-neighbour scaling.

FAQ