A digital halftoning method where pixels are arranged to give the impression of using a wider color palette than what is actually available. Pixel art (both static and animated) tend to rely on this for shading and colouring.

The most commonly-seen form is the 2*2 two-colour checkerboard, although more advanced patterning methods exist that use 4*4 or larger grids to express more shades with the same amount of colors.

2*2 dithering
post #1342121

3*3 dithering (background)
post #1550524

10*9 patterning
post #429621

Related tags

• halftone -- related technique that uses circles of either varying size or varying spacing
• screentone -- related technique that uses circles (or other shapes) but with fixed size and spacing
• compression_artifacts