Use dithering when it adds texture, not noise

Dithering alternates available colors to suggest an in-between tone; it does not recover detail that a small grid never captured. Before enabling it, ask whether a flat fill is actually too abrupt or whether the subject is already losing its shape. The second problem needs a better crop, grid, or palette role.

A blue sky can benefit from a restrained transition because the eye reads the broad field as atmosphere. A face usually needs larger uninterrupted shapes, so the same alternation can turn skin, eyes, and hair into a noisy checkerboard.

Ordered patterns are predictable and easy to inspect, but their regular texture can become visible as a new motif. Error-diffusion patterns look more organic and can spread isolated pixels into areas where a maker will have to sort many tiny changes. Neither is universally better; the correct choice depends on the image and the material.

For the 64-cell evening scene, inspect the sky at arm's length and keep the dither confined to the gradient. For the 24-cell face, turn it off and use two intentional skin colors. A clean flat region is often a higher-quality craft decision than a more photographic transition.

Zoom into every focal edge and remove single pixels that have no structural role. A dithered result can contain mathematically valid islands that are awkward to place and visually meaningless at the finished size. Mark those changes as manual cleanup so the next version does not reintroduce them by accident.

Export both the algorithmic preview and the cleaned build chart when comparing versions. The preview demonstrates the color transition; the chart is the authority for placement. Keep the mode, palette count, and cleanup note in the project metadata.