Editing Mezzotint (section)

==Dark to light method==
This became the most common method. The whole surface (usually) of a [[metal]], usually copper, plate is roughened evenly, manually with a rocker, or mechanically. If the plate were printed at this point it would show as solid black. The image is then created by selectively burnishing areas of the surface of the metal plate with metal tools; the smoothed parts will print lighter than those areas not smoothed by the burnishing tool. Areas smoothed completely flat will not hold ink at all; such areas will print "white," that is, the colour of the paper without ink. This is called working from "dark to light", or the "subtractive" method.<ref>Barker</ref>  It was first used by [[Prince Rupert of the Rhine]].  The all-over roughening does not require huge skill, and was normally done by an apprentice.<ref>Mayor, 512–513; Griffiths (1996b), 83–84; D'Oench, 7–8</ref>

[[File:Jacob Christoph Le Blon Louis XV 1739.jpg|thumb|Four-colour mezzotint of [[Louis XV]] by [[Jacob Christoph Le Blon]], 1739]]

Two great advantages of the technique were that it was easier to learn and also much faster than [[engraving]] proper, as well as giving a rich range of tones. Mezzotints could be produced very quickly to respond to or depict events or people in the news,<ref>D'Oench, 7–9</ref> and larger sizes of print were relatively easy to produce.  This was crucial for what was known at the time as the '''furniture print''', a mezzotint that was large enough and with sufficiently bold tonal contrasts to hold its own framed and hung on the wall of a room. Since mezzotints were far cheaper than paintings, this was a great attraction.<ref>Barker; Mayor, 513</ref>  

===Colour===
[[Jacob Christoph Le Blon]] (1667-1741) used the dark to light method and invented the three and four-colour mezzotint printing technique by using a separate metal plate for each colour.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Le Blon |first1=Jakob Christophe |title=Coloritto; or the Harmony of Colouring in Painting: Reduced to Mechanical Practice under Easy Precepts, and Infallible Rules; Together with some Colour'd Figures. |date= 1725 |url=https://archive.org/details/Colorittoharmon00LeBl |access-date=4 July 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mortimer |first1=Cromwell |title=An Account of Mr. J. C. Le Blon's Principles of Printing, in Imitation of Painting, and of Weaving Tapestry, in the Same Manner as Brocades. |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London |date=1731 |volume=37 |issue=419 |pages=101–107 |doi=10.1098/rstl.1731.0019 |s2cid=186212141 }}</ref> Le Blon's colour printing method applied the RYB colour model approach whereby red, yellow and blue were used to create a larger range of colour shades. In ''Coloritto'', his book of 1725, Le Blon refers to red, yellow and blue as "primitive" colours and that red and yellow make orange; red and blue, make purple/violet; and blue and yellow make green (Le Blon, 1725, p. 6). A similar process was used in France later in the century by Le Blon's pupil [[Jacques-Fabien Gautier-Dagoty]] and his sons; their work included anatomical illustrations for medical books.<ref>Barker</ref>  Other black and white prints were hand-coloured in [[watercolour]], which was especially useful after the plate became worn.<ref>D'Oench, 76</ref>