Note: Before you install this script into your software, first save all your files. If you open a layered file with this script active, it can flatten your image, so always try this out on a copy, never on the source file
INSTALLATION AND USAGE
Installation is fairly easy and a sequential process. If you follow the instructions below, will be a piece of cake, really.
- First, download the file. Double click on it, and it will install on the software where you want it to be placed
- Go to Photoshop and open up a palette called “Actions”. You can go to Windows>Actions or press the keyboard shortcut Alt+F9
- Click on the little triangle in the WP7 folder to open it, and select the WP7 Dithering action. Once that is selected, play the macro by clicking on the Play arrow at the bottom of the ‘Actions’ palette.
- A prompt will appear, do you want to flatten the image. Say yes to flatten all the layers into one single layer.
- You will then receive a prompt on how to merge the newly created RGB layers. When this appears, choose RGB color in the Merge Channels option
- When in the channels window, match R with Red, B with Blue, and G with Green.
This is not a single click operation, but it’s completed. The image can now be exported as either a jpeg (.jpg) or a PNG file (.png)
And now you can see a nice clean image on your mobile phone, with colors reproduced just the way it should be, without any artifacts.
IS THIS NECESSARY?
This is needed when a phone is incapable of showing a high number of colors. On such a phone when an image has gradual gradations of color or gradients of a shade, then it results in “banding”, where shading shows up as “bands of color” rather than a smooth transition from one shade to the next.
The photoshop action that you have just installed is nothing but a piece of code, like a macro, that executes a series of actions (hence – action) in a predefined sequence.
So what exactly does this script do? Well, it pre-dithers the picture, that is to say, it reduces the color in the image, by means of a moire pattern, that creates the semblance of a smooth transition of colors.
This has worked with all the images tried out by the author. So, it should work for you too. In the remote chance that it doesn’t, please do revert back to me, so improvements can be made and incorporated. Have fun and happy viewing!
