CHAPTER V.
THE PREPARATION OF ORIGINALS FOR REPRODUCTION BY HALF-TONE PROCESS.
I. Photograms.
It will be understood from the foregoing chapter that in every case where the original to be reproduced is of such a nature that before a print in ink can be made the image must be broken up, the reproduction will have to be effected by means of the half-tone process.
Of the various kinds of originals thus utilised, probably the two most common are photograms and wash-drawings.
The rapidity, comparative ease, and absence of the draughtsman's skill, with which photograms can now be made, has placed a wonderful power in the hands of author or illustrator. But a short series of photograms of some subject of interest with a very little descriptive letterpress will often form an acceptable contribution to magazine or newspaper, and yet a thoughtful consideration of such illustrations can hardly fail to impress any one with the drawbacks and defects of the method.
Such illustrations too often strike us as dull, misty, grey, and lacking brilliancy, when compared with black and white reproductions of another kind.
This dulness is attributable to a great extent to the gauze-like screen through which the copy is made, as described in our last chapter. The bright lights are grained over with fine dots reducing white to grey, and the soft finely graduated half-tones are often lost altogether.