What is the best dithering pattern to use?

 

AcroPlot Repro has several different patterns that are based on the total number of shades of gray that can be created.

The best pattern we feel is the new AcroPlot Repro Enhanced Dithering 2.  This does not follow the standard mathematical equations for dithering and instead has been enhanced to not drop out thin light colored lines while still giving you high quality gradient and picture shading.

 

Typically the fewer the shades the better lines and text will look but the worse color or grayscale images and gradient fills will look.

The 36 shade setting is typically a good because it uses a 6x6 matrix to create the dots so the chance of a light colored line will not drop out.  The 100 shades setting is the closest to what Ghostscript creates but it is also the roughest pattern because it uses a 10x10 matrix so light lines can drop out fairly easily.

 

16 Shades - uses a 4x4 matrix. Looks awesome if your images are already monochrome and you don't use any gradient fills.  Otherwise, the images and gradient fills do not have enough shades to look good.  But it will give you the best

36 Shades - uses a 6x6 matrix.  Good compromise between gradient fills and still making light colored lines and text look good.

64 Shades - uses an 8x8 matrix.  Usually gives decent results for colored images and gradient fills.

100 Shades - Really similar to Ghostscript dithering and the best for color images and gradient fills.  But horrible for light lines and text.