The size of a halftone dot, expressed as a percentage of the total surface area, which can range from 0% (no dot) in highlights to 100% (solid ink density) in shadows. By carefully measuring the dot area in various regions of an image at various stages in the reproduction of an image, dot densities can remain consistent.
In digital halftoning, dots (in this case called cells) comprise much smaller printer spots which, depending on the resolution of the output device, can be used to create dots of various sizes and densities. Varying the number of spots that make up a halftone cell can work to fine-tune the dot densities by increasing the number of shades of gray available as the number of spots in a cell is increased.
Dot area density is also known as dot area or dot density.