THINGS YOU CAN’T DO
If you use half-tones, have them made very coarse screen—nothing finer than 60 line. Stop out whites and eliminate backgrounds. The high-light half-tone is a modern development with many virtues. If a portrait is used, take out all background.
There is a way of retouching photographs that will minimize the danger of poor printing. The artist strengthens weak contrasts, not with a brush and paint, but with a pen and waterproof black ink. He also uses areas of pure white. Successful reproduction is dependent upon sharp, clear, vigorous contrasts.
Stippling is one of the best substitutes for the half-tone. This simply means dotting-in a subject. It is a time-consuming, laborious process, but it means line plates and the elimination of middle tones—which are disastrous.
There was a time when certain clever inventions of the paper manufacturer could be employed for half-tone effects in line. For example, a Ross Board is manufactured with an assortment of patterned surfaces. When brush or crayon or pencil is drawn over them, they give effects that may not be duplicated in straight pen and ink on plain white drawing board. Some of these papers have a chalk surface. Some have imitation half-tone patterns, straight-line designs, etc. It is possible to scratch away certain portions with a sharp knife. Do not use them as matters now stand in newspaper printing. They will not “stand reduction” and only very coarse tints reproduce satisfactorily.
Special Caution—Do not allow artists to make original drawings for newspaper use much larger than twice the size. Here is one of the greatest evils of the day. The artist seems possessed to make his original on a full sheet of paper, when he knows that the plate is for two or three newspaper columns. What happens? An illustration which makes a handsome showing in the original will inevitably fill-in when reduced to “actual size.” Figure it out yourself—look at it through a reducing glass. Lines that seem wide apart almost touch in the congestion that follows great reduction. The really wise and shrewd artist makes his newspaper drawing actual size.
Not more than a dozen Ben Day patterns can be used safely—now—in newspapers. Do you know the meaning of “Ben Day?” It is a mechanical tint, printed mechanically either on the plate, by the engraver, or on the original drawing, from an inked gelatine surface and rubbed on with a stilus. Magazine reproduction accepts it in all its forms. Newspaper stock muddies it up when it is too fine. In any event, when selecting a pattern, see that it is an open one and have it put on the engraving—not the design. If on the design it means a reduction. If on the plate it means no reduction, but precisely as shown in the Ben Day book of patterns. Avoid complex line treatments and techniques, such as cross-hatching and the laying in of many very fine 290 pen lines close together. They look well in the original—they seldom print well on newspaper stock. They reduce abominably.
Any newspaper illustration should have plenty of white margin to “relieve it.” When a drawing is cramped, packed in, suffocated by side rules, borders and text, it suffers.
Clear outline drawings, with an occasional dash of black, prove most efficient for newspaper reproduction. They can’t fill in, they can’t smudge, they can’t become contaminated by clots of printing ink or defects in the newspaper stock. Not even fast press work can damage their printability. But remember, not all outline drawings are alike—great originality of technique can be secured.