Give photos a retro dithered look

Floyd–Steinberg grain or Bayer's ordered grid — the print-and-dot aesthetic of 90s screens, on any photo.

Tools used in this guide

Image dithering
Posterize image
Halftone image converter

The job

Dithering fools the eye into seeing tones that aren't there — two colours arranged in the right pattern read as grey. It's the signature texture of early Mac screens and newspaper photos.

Pick the algorithm, then the depth

Floyd–Steinberg diffuses each pixel's error to its neighbours — organic grain. Bayer applies a fixed 8×8 threshold grid — the neat crosshatch of ordered dithering. Then choose levels (2 = pure black & white) and grayscale or colour.

2-level grayscale Floyd–Steinberg is the classic newspaper look.
Colour mode quantizes each RGB channel — at 2 levels you get an 8-colour palette image.

Good inputs

High-contrast subjects survive best; subtle gradients band visibly at low level counts (which can be the point). Output is PNG so no new compression artifacts join the dots.