A photomechanical process by which the tones of a photographic image are represented by tiny dots of variable size. Typically, the process involves photographing a subject through a cross-line screen to produce a half-tone negative, which is then used to make a printing plate. A picture printed from the plate is made up of dots proportional in size to the light passing through the negative. Although a coherent image is seen by the naked eye, inspection with a low-powered lens easily reveals the dot structure. Half-tone has a long history. Henry Talbot demonstrated the principle of the process in 1852, but it only became a commercially viable means of reproducing photographs alongside words on the printed page after improvements in the 1880s. Half-tone was the major factor in the expansion of popular illustrated newspapers and magazines c.1900, leading to the enormous circulations of the present day.
— John P. Ward
Bibliography
- Verfasser, J., The Half-Tone Process (3rd edn. 1904)
