Dithering pattern creator.

Before 24-bit color, computers mixed the few colors they had in patterns so the eye would see more. This tool makes random grain, the error-diffusion family's cousin: Custom noise with a short palette at a high amount gives the look. For ordered dithering with a proper palette, the PNG to GIF converter applies Floyd–Steinberg when it reduces colors.

Turn on Grayscale first, then Custom noise with black, white at 50 percent and up. The original Macintosh drew in pure black and white, so the pattern should contain nothing else.

Custom noise with the exact palette. Game Boy: #0f380f, #306230, #8bac0f, #9bbc0f. Early Windows: red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, black, white. Set the amount to 60 to 80 percent for dense mixing.

Gradients in a few bits show steps. Similar noise at 3 to 8 percent breaks the hard edge between steps and the eye reads a smooth ramp again, which is the oldest use of dithering.

Amount is the share of pixels that get a noise value: at 10 percent one pixel in ten changes, at 100 every pixel does. Grain starts at 10 to 25, static at 80 and up.

The pattern comes from a seeded generator, so the same image and settings always give the same result. New pattern draws a fresh seed; the download is exactly what the preview shows.

By default fully transparent pixels are skipped, which keeps a cut-out's background clean. Turn on Transparent areas to paint noise there too; those pixels become opaque. Translucent gives every noise pixel a random alpha inside the range you set, for overlays.

No. The file is read in your browser and every step runs there, on your device. The page makes no request with your image, so you can load it, go offline and keep working.

No. The Dithering pattern creator is free and opens without a sign-in, an account or an install.

Nothing. The Dithering pattern creator holds your input in the page's memory, so closing or reloading the tab clears it, and it saves nothing in this browser.

Up to 100 MB per file, the limit the tool states under its drop area. A larger file is refused with a plain message instead of being decoded.

No, it takes one file at a time. If you drop or choose several, only the first is used; run the tool again for the next one.

The edit is written as a PNG because PNG stores every pixel exactly, with a full alpha channel, so the result can be edited again without a second round of loss.

No. The browser decodes the image and the tool writes a new file from its pixels, so camera EXIF, GPS position and text chunks in the original are not copied into the result. Keep the original file if you need them.

No. The result has the same width and height in pixels as the source.

Closest to the Dithering pattern creator: PNG noise maker, PNG to GIF converter, Monochrome image maker, PNG color replacer. Each opens on its own page, free and in the browser.

The Dithering pattern creator is one of 47 in its group. The group's page, /tools/png, lists them all.

The tool is free. Its interface is built from shadcn.io's own components (Button, Input, Slider and the rest of the registry under /ui), which come in React, Vue, Svelte and Solid. Pro adds the blocks and templates for the product around it.