Floyd-Steinberg dithering

In the workflow

Why Floyd-Steinberg dithering matters

It is a practical baseline for photo tests because it produces an irregular, economical dot pattern without a large repeating matrix.

Practical check

How to evaluate it

Use Floyd-Steinberg as a compact baseline, then compare the same crop with Jarvis and Stucki. Look for local detail, noise, and whether nearby dots are likely to merge on the material.

See the pixels

Floyd-Steinberg dithering, shown on the same portrait

Floyd-Steinberg passes error to four nearby pixels. In the example, follow the eye outline into the cheek: the edge and the surrounding gray are both built from the same black-and-white pixels.

Floyd-SteinbergJarvisStucki

Full portraitDetail crop

Floyd-Steinberg: Use it as a baseline. Compare the small dots around the eyes and the transition from cheek to shadow.

Matching 200 × 200-pixel crops, taken after the full images were dithered. Previews fit your screen. Open a downloaded PNG at 100% to inspect the actual pixels.

Computed bitmap examples from EngravePrep's bundled sample portrait. These are not physical engraving results or a material recommendation.

Download the full-size PNGs

• Grayscale source
• Floyd-Steinberg
• Jarvis
• Stucki

600 × 750 pixels · 300 DPI metadata · 2 × 2.5 inches at that DPI

If the hair becomes one dark mass in every version, revisit the source tones before changing algorithms. A dither cannot recover detail that is already missing.

See the complete comparison and how the examples were made.