Editing Halftone (section)

==History==
[[File:Canadian Illustrated News Volume 1 Number 1 Cover.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=The cover of The Canadian Illustrated News with a halftone photograph of Prince Arthur|The first printed photo using a halftone in a Canadian periodical, October 30, 1869]]
[[File:Julemotiv tegnet av Jenny Nystrøm (24207693358).jpg|thumb|upright|right|A multicolor postcard by [[Jenny Nyström]] (1899) printed from hand-made halftone plates]]
While there were earlier mechanical printing processes that could imitate the tone and subtle details of a photograph, most notably the [[Woodburytype]],  expense and practicality prohibited their being used in mass commercial printing that used relief printing. 

Previously most newspaper pictures were woodcuts or wood-engravings made from hand-carved blocks of wood that, while they were often copied from photographs, resembled hand drawn sketches. Commercial printers wanted a practical way to realistically reproduce photographs onto the printed page, but most common mechanical printing processes can only print areas of ink or leave blank areas on the paper and not a photographic range of tones; only black (or coloured) ink, or nothing. The half-tone process overcame these limitations and became the staple of the book, newspaper and other periodical industry.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|author1=Hannavy, John|title=Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography|date=2008|publisher=Taylor & Francis Group|isbn=978-0-203-94178-2}}</ref>

[[William Fox Talbot]] is credited with the idea of halftone printing. In an 1852 patent he suggested using "photographic screens or veils" in connection with a photographic [[intaglio (printmaking)|intaglio]] process.<ref>{{cite book|url={{GBurl|id=OlQEAAAAQAAJ|q=talbot%20%22photographic%20screens%20or%20veils%22|p=58}}|title=The Repertory of patent inventions {{pipe}}1853|year=1853}}</ref><ref name="twyman1970">Twyman, Michael. Printing 1770–1970: an illustrated history of its development and uses in England. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1970.</ref>

Several different kinds of screens were proposed during the following decades. One of the first attempts was by [[William Leggo]] with his leggotype while working for the ''[[Canadian Illustrated News]]''. The first printed halftone photograph was an image of [[Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn|Prince Arthur]] published on October 30, 1869.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cin/001065-2010-e.html|title=The First Half-Tones|publisher=Library and Archives of Canada|access-date=September 17, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090817122657/http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cin/001065-2010-e.html|archive-date=2009-08-17|url-status=dead}}</ref> The ''New York Daily Graphic'' would later publish "the first reproduction of a photograph with a full tonal range in a newspaper" on March 4, 1880 (entitled "A Scene in Shantytown") with a crude halftone screen.<ref name="meggspage141">{{cite book|last=Meggs|first=Philip B.|title=A History of Graphic Design|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc.|year=1998|page=141|isbn=0-471-29198-6}}</ref>

The first truly successful commercial method was patented by [[Frederic Eugene Ives|Frederic Ives]] of [[Philadelphia]] in 1881.<ref name="twyman1970"/><ref name="meggspage141"/> Although he found a way of breaking up the image into dots of varying sizes, he did not make use of a screen. In 1882, the German {{ill|Georg Meisenbach|de}} patented a halftone process in Germany which he named {{ill|autotype (printing technique)|lt=autotype|de|Autotypie}}.<ref>{{cite book| url = {{GBurl|id=odxHta7A2CQC|q=22244+Reichspatent|p=436}} | chapter = 22244 Reichspatent | title = Lexikon der Reprotechnik | volume = 2 | edition =  | page = 436| isbn = 978-3-86656-554-8 | last1 = Kerner | first1 = Hans K. | year = 2007 | publisher = Reinhard Welz Vermittler Verlag e.K. }}</ref> His invention was based on the previous ideas of Berchtold and Swan. He used single lined screens which were turned during exposure to produce cross-lined effects. He was the first to achieve any commercial success with [[relief printing|relief]] halftones.<ref name=twyman1970/>

Shortly afterwards, Ives, this time in collaboration with Louis and Max Levy, improved the process further with the invention and commercial production of quality cross-lined screens.<ref name=twyman1970/>

The [[relief printing|relief]] halftone process proved almost immediately to be a success. The use of halftone blocks in popular journals became regular during the early 1890s.<ref name=twyman1970/>

The development of halftone printing methods for [[lithography]] appears to have followed a largely independent path. In the 1860s, [[A. Hoen & Co.]] focused on methods allowing artists to manipulate the tones of hand-worked printing stones.<ref>Hoen, August. ''Composition for etching stone'', U.S. Patent 27,981, Apr 24, 1860.</ref> By the 1880s, Hoen was working on halftone methods that could be used in conjunction with either hand-worked or photolithographic stones.<ref>Hoen, August. ''Lithographic Process'', U.S. Patent 227,730, May 15, 1883.</ref><ref>Hoen, August. ''Lithographic Process'', U.S. Patent 227,782, May 18, 1880.</ref>