anti-aliasing

In computer graphics, a software technique for diminishing aliasing (‘jaggies’) – steplike lines that should be smooth. Jaggies occur because the output device, the monitor or printer, does not have a high enough resolution to represent a smooth line. Anti-aliasing reduces the prominence of jaggies by surrounding the steps with intermediate shades of grey (for grey-scaling devices) or colour (for colour devices). Although this reduces the jagged appearance of the lines, it also makes them fuzzier.