There is also a selection box for the dither algorithm to be used in the
pop-up dialog. There are currently seven choices:
Adaptive Hybrid
Adaptive Hybrid usually yields the best output quality; it chooses a
modified Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion algorithm or ordered dithering
depending upon the image characteristics.
Ordered
Ordered uses a pure ordered dither. It generally yields excellent
quality for simple black and white or four color printers without
variable drop size or drop modulation; it is not recommended if high
quality is desired on six color printers. It is considerably faster
than Adaptive Hybrid.
Fast
Fast also uses a pure ordered dither, but uses a very simple black model
and makes no attempt to handle multi-level (6-color, variable drop size,
or drop modulation) at all cleanly. It is substantially faster than
Ordered dither. The quality tends to be quite poor except on simple
four color printers. On three color printers, quality is probably
competitive with anything else.
Very Fast
Very Fast is similar to Fast, except that it uses a very simple dither
matrix that can be looked up much more quickly than the matrix used in
the Fast dither. For simple pure black and white images dominated by
horizontal and vertical lines, this may actually yield the best results;
for other types of image, the quality will be poor.
Adaptive Random
Adaptive Random is similar to Adaptive Hybrid, except that the
modifications to the Floyd-Steinberg algorithm are slightly different.
This is slower than Adaptive Hybrid on most systems. For some images
the quality may be better than Adaptive Hybrid, but generally Adaptive
Hybrid should yield slightly superior images.
Hybrid Floyd-Steinberg
Hybrid Floyd-Steinberg uses the modified Floyd-Steinberg algorithm of
Adaptive Hybrid on the entire image. Generally, the results are poor in
pale regions.
Random Floyd-Steinberg
Random Floyd-Steinberg uses the modified Floyd-Steinberg algorithm of
Adaptive Random on the entire image. Generally, the results are poor in
pale regions.