When a digital output device or display cannot reproduce a specific color or smooth gradient, it relies on an algorithm to mix tiny dots of the colors it can print. The eye blends these adjacent dots together to perceive a new solid color or a smooth transition.
Heard on the job
If you drop the image down to an 8-bit palette, the software will dither the background gradient and it will look grainy.
Also heard as
- dithering
Do not mix it up with
- Halftone: Halftoning varies the size of the dots to create optical illusions of tone, while dithering uses fixed-size pixels arranged in varying densities.