Plain-language definitions of the terms used across Bitgrain and its docs, from dithering, halftone and riso to LUTs, working resolution, seeds and .btg files. Each entry links to the page that covers it in depth.
A studio layer that is a movable, resizable box. It applies an effect and image filters to everything beneath it, without changing those layers. Useful for grading a region or a whole page in a way you can undo at any time. See effects and adjustment layers.
An editor tool that turns one photo and its effect into a short loop that repeats cleanly, by cycling a parameter, such as a posterize level or an RGB split, over time. See animate a still.
A picture drawn with text characters. Bitgrain divides the image into a grid and picks a denser character for darker cells. It can be exported as real text in an SVG. See ASCII and text textures.
Running one effect chain over many images at once (up to 50) and downloading the results together as a ZIP. A Pro feature. See batch processing.
A video editor tool that finds the beats in a song and then cuts clips, pulses markers or pops the zoom on each beat. See beat sync.
The rule for how a layer's colors mix with the layers beneath it, such as multiply, screen or overlay. See opacity and blend modes.
A character effect like ASCII that uses the dot patterns of Unicode braille characters, giving a finer texture. See Braille.
Bitgrain's own project file. From the editor it holds your image and every setting. From the studio it holds every page, layer, image, custom font and the design kit. Free to save and open on every plan. See backing up with .btg files.
Saving studio and video projects to your account so they appear on every device you sign in on. A Pro feature. Video media files stay on the device you imported them on. See where your projects are saved.
Cyan, magenta, yellow and black, the four inks of standard color printing. Bitgrain's CMYK halftone splits an image into four dot screens at different angles, the way a printing press does. See halftone.
An effect that traces an image into topographic lines, like a relief map. See contour.
A reusable set of colors, text styles and number values (such as corner radius or spacing) that you apply across a studio project, so a change in one place updates everywhere. See design kits.
The promise that the same image with the same settings gives the same result every time, on any computer. It is what makes recipes, .btg files and video re-exports reliable. Even grain and noise textures are seeded. See determinism.
Recreating shades and colors with a pattern of a few flat colors, for example only black and white dots. The eye blends the pattern back into tones. Bitgrain has 14 dithering methods. See dithering.
How strongly a dither pattern is applied, from 0 to 1. Lower values keep more of the original image. See dither factor.
Mapping the dark parts of an image to one color and the light parts to another, like a two-ink print. See duotone.
A family of dithering methods, including Floyd-Steinberg and Atkinson, that pass each pixel's rounding error on to its neighbours. The result looks organic and grainy. See error diffusion.
See LUT.
A container inside a studio page with its own size, background and optional clipping, often used as an artboard for a device or print size. See frames inside pages.
In the video editor, each frame gets its own seed from its time in the clip, so textures move from frame to frame but come out the same on every export. See frame seeds and jitter.
Printing tones as a grid of dots that grow larger in dark areas and smaller in light ones, as in newspapers and comics. Bitgrain supports mono, color and CMYK halftones. See halftone and print.
A PNG saved with a wide color space and high brightness information (BT.2100 PQ at 800 nits) so highlights can glow on HDR displays. See HDR.
The photo format iPhones and many Android phones use. Bitgrain converts it to JPEG in your browser. See supported files.
A saved pose for a layer at a point in time. The studio animates between keyframes, and the video editor can keyframe effect values. See animation and keyframes.
The one-time Pro purchase. One payment covers ten years of Pro and never renews. See the Pro licence.
The longer of an image's two sides. Bitgrain's size limits are measured on it: 8192 pixels on the way in, 1500 pixels for free exports.
A vector animation format stored as JSON, used in websites and apps. The studio can export animations as Lottie. See exporting an animation.
Short for lookup table. A LUT maps every color to a new color, which is how film stock looks such as Portra or Tri-X are recreated. In the editor this is the grade button. See LUT grades.
Model Context Protocol, an open standard that lets an assistant call tools. The Bitgrain connector is an MCP server. See connect AI assistants.
Placing your design onto a photo of a real object, such as a poster on a wall, with the perspective matched. See mockups.
Dithering with a fixed repeating pattern, such as a Bayer matrix. It gives a regular, crosshatched texture that stays stable in animation. See ordered and threshold methods.
A fixed set of colors the image is snapped to after the effects run, such as a Game Boy or risograph palette. See palettes.
Reducing an image to a small number of flat tone bands. See posterize.
A saved combination of effects and settings you can apply in one click. Bitgrain ships its own, and you can save yours. See presets and recipes.
An optional pass on export that adds ink-on-paper imperfection: paper mottle, soft tone and grain in the shadows, so a file looks printed rather than flat. See print finish.
The unprocessed sensor data a camera saves, in formats such as .cr3, .nef or .arw. Bitgrain develops about 27 RAW formats in your browser. See camera RAW.
A shareable look. A recipe link carries the settings in the address itself, and community recipes are looks people have published to the recipes gallery. See community recipes.
A stencil printer that prints one bright ink at a time, known for vivid fluorescent colors and slight misregistration. Bitgrain can split an image into up to four ink layers for riso printing. See risograph separations.
A number that decides the pattern of an effect that needs variation, such as dust and scratches. The same seed always gives the same pattern. See seeds.
An editor tool for painting an effect, such as blur or grayscale, onto only part of a photo. See selective brush.
One single-color layer of a multi-ink print, such as the cyan plate of a CMYK print or one ink of a riso print.
A vector file format made of shapes rather than pixels, so it stays sharp at any size. Editor SVG export is a Pro feature. See vector SVG.
The free 7-day Pro trial. One per account, no card, and it ends on its own. See the 7-day Pro trial.
The small bitgrain.app label in the bottom right corner of free exports. Pro removes it. See watermark.
A browser feature for encoding video frame by frame. Bitgrain uses it for frame-accurate MP4 export. Without it, video exports as WebM. See browser support.
The size of the grid that effects are calculated on, set by the Resolution slider. It decides how coarse or fine the texture is, which is why changing it changes the look and not just the file size. Exports keep the look by scaling this grid up. See the working grid and resolution.