One Bit Dither Print

Illustration · Dither · Halftone

Recipe

The style is the recipe. The subject is yours.

A description in plain sentences. This is the version to start with, and it works on any current image model. Settings below are the ones we used on Midjourney; treat them as a starting point.

Make it yours

The recipe is the style, not the picture. Put your own subject in and the highlighted part of the prompt changes.

Prompt

a car on a road beneath a dark sun, drawn entirely as a one bit ordered dither in black ink on warm cream paper, a regular diagonal dot grid rather than random hand placed stipple, tone carried only by dot density, from a light scatter across the sky through a mid weave on the dunes to a dense mesh in the foreground and one area of solid unbroken black in the subject, no outlines anywhere with every edge thinning into loose dots, visible woven paper texture, spare mid century composition with a low horizon and a lot of empty paper --ar 4:5 --stylize 200 --v 7

The prompt gets you close. Feed one of the examples in as a style reference for the rest. Download the images

Use the examples as a reference

Download the examples

Drag an example into Discord to get a URL, then put that URL at the start of the prompt as an image prompt, or use it as a style reference with --sref <url>. Tune with --sw, where 100 is default and 50 keeps more of your own subject.

Settings on Midjourney

Aspect: --ar 4:5
Stylize: --stylize 200
Chaos: --chaos 5
Version: --v 7

Tips

1Say ordered dither, not stipple. Stipple gives random hand placed dots, and it is the regular grid that makes this read as a one bit image rather than as a drawing.
2Never let the sky go blank. The light scatter across the empty areas is what holds the paper together as a surface.
3Keep one area of solid black. Without a patch of pure ink the density steps have nothing to measure themselves against.

Overview

An image with only two tones in it, black ink and warm cream paper, where every intermediate value is manufactured out of dot density. The dots are an ordered dither on a regular diagonal grid rather than hand placed stipple, so the surface has the mechanical rhythm of a coarse newspaper halftone or a one bit bitmap. Tone climbs in steps: a light scatter across the empty sky so nothing is ever truly blank, a mid weave over the dunes, a dense diagonal mesh in the foreground, and one area of solid unbroken black in the subject to anchor everything else. No outline appears anywhere, since every edge simply thins into loose dots and stops. Compositions are spare and mid century, one object against a low horizon with a great deal of paper left doing nothing.

Category: Illustration
Period: Contemporary
Recipes: Midjourney, GPT Image, Flux
Views: 175
Added: 18 Aug 2026