Why do my Twitch/Discord ASCII outputs look bad?

• Unfortunately, compressing a normal image down to a 1-bit image that can be posted in small chatboxes is hard. But it is possible to achieve good results. For Twitch and Discord ASCII, small, low-detail images with sharp color gradients are recommended.

What are the differences between each Style?

• The first 4 Styles use dithering, a technique that introduces intentional noise in an attempt to reduce the quantization error, which, in this case, is the error introduced by reducing the color palette from 16,777,216 colors to 2 colors.
• • Normal: Uses Floyd-Steinberg dithering, which is the most famous dithering technique. This is an "all around" algorithm that produces solid results in most cases.
  • High Contrast: Uses Atkinson dithering, likely the second most popular dithering technique. Atkison tends to produce a "softer" results, with higher exposure control than other dithering techniques. This is a good option when you want the exposure slider to have a greater effect.
  • Edge Contrast: Uses Sierra Lite, a dithering technique menthioned briefly in this dithering atricle. This technique produces similar results to Normal, but due to it's smaller diffusion matrix, tends to have sharper edges, which may be desireable for certain images.
  • Smooth: Uses minimized average error, another relatively popular dithering technique. With a larger diffusion matrix, this technique tends to produce the "smoothest" feeling results.
• The 5th and final style, Brightness, is the most simple. For each pixel, if the percieved brightness exceeds the exposure threshold, it will render "on". Otherwise, the pixel renders "off". The exposure slider has great effects on the output of this style, and depending on the image, can actually provide more desireable results than the more advanced dithering approaches.

I am not using Twitch or Discord, but a different application. How can I generate a correctly-sized result?

• First, you need to figure out the width of your chatbox measured in characters. Next, you need to consider character limits, if any. This will put a limit on the height of your ASCII, which can be calculated via the following: $$\mathrm{height}=\lfloor \frac{{\mathrm{character}}_{\max }}{\mathrm{width}}\rfloor$$ Finally, select the Custom size, and enter your width. If the computed height exceeds your height, uncheck Maintain Aspect Ratio and manually enter your height.