Blog Post #6: 3rd EOTO - Halftone

Background

Halftone printing was invented in the late 19th century, when newspaper companies began to experiment with photographic screens in order to include photographs within their newspapers. The exact inventor of the process isnt accredited to a specific experimenter as many different people attempted a multitude of printing processes. Though William Henry Fox Talbot was the first to patent the system of using of textile screens in 1852, there are other main contributors recognized for their development of halftone according to this article.

Process

To produce halftone illustratiom, photos were first made into negatives which is where a transparent strip shows the lightest areas of a photo as the darkest areas and vice versa. The negative is then exposed through a screen which has a certain dot per inch count imbedded in it. For newspaper it was usually between 60 to 80 dot per inch. Once exposed, it would then be reflected on a photosensitive metallic plate where it would produce dots spread apart to represent the light areas and closely condolences dots to show dark areas. The metallic plate would have a very thin layer of ink to stamp out the half tone illustration according to this video. Although half tone uses black ink, the small to big range of dots creates an illusion of a gradient range of grey to black to the naked eye. This is the most basic process of halftone that was used in newspapers, though there are a variety of other halftone process that reconstruct the dot formation to convey different art forms. Some use multiple dotted layers of ink to enhance complexity in a picture and others have unique dot shapes to accentuate detail.

Before Halftone

        Prior to halftone, the woodcut process was the primary way that visuals would be presented in newspapers. The woodcut artist would first draw directly on the wood or place a sketch face down on the block of wood then color the entirety of the back of the sketch using graphite or chalk. This would copy the drawing to the wood block. They would then chisel the wood with a knife or sharp object where they didn’t want ink. The raised areas that remain after the block has been cut are inked, while the deeper areas would not retain ink. Then, like a stamp, the wood block would be inked then pressed down onto a plate with paper on it to copy the illustration according to this article. This was a tedious process and would reflect a written drawing rather than an photograph like halftone. 

Benefits & Impact

A huge advantage to halftone was that it enabled publishing companies to print text and images in one single run of the press and also printing a mass amount in quantity according to this article. It was a better and more effective picture for readers and it was also a fairily cheap process since it utilized only a small amount of ink. The ink was the only aspect that needed to be replenished as they would be able to continuously reuse the metallic dotted plates. Unlike woodcut where there was an expense for the artist, the wood, ink, and chalk or graphite. It also offered the public a quicker turnaround time for news since publishing companies didn’t have to use the meticulous process of woodcut engravings to produce a drawing.  It took many different tries for the process to become refined, but even to this day, halftone images have become the standard for printing in newspapers. 

The very first half tone photo to be published in a newspaper was in 1880, when the New York Daily produced an image of Shantytown, New York.