EOTO #1

 

Photo:Histotyofinformation.com

A photograph of the first half tone in the "Daily Graphic."

The Half Tone

By Samantha Weiss

Picture a world where your newspaper couldn't show you what actually happened. The images you saw were made by skilled wood engravers; however, these looked like art rather than reality.

That is what many people had to live with until the 1880s when the Halftone was invented.

Half tone is varying sizes of dots that trick your eye into seeing shades of grey. By changing the size of the dot, you actually changed the saturation. Large dots created darker parts, and tiny dots created lighter tones. When you stand close to an old newspaper photograph, you will see grids; however, when you stand farther back, the dots blend into a seamless image.

Who was the creator of the Half Tone?

Photo: Britannica

A photograph of Fredrick Eugene Ives.

Fredrick Eugene Ives. Was the inventor of the crossline screen. This invention consisted of two glass plates that were put together at right angles. When you shot through this screen, it would break the
image into thousands of tiny dots that could be taken and put onto paper.

You wouldn't think this would have such a lasting impact, but it sure did.

March 4, 1880, the New York Daily Graphic published the first halftone photograph in an American newspaper. By the 1890s, half-tone became the standard in journalism. People finally could see what they were reading about. Half-tone gave credibility to the writers, which got their readers to trust them.

With this could come a consequence.

Though this was so transformative, it also came with a consequence. Since the production accelerated, the images could be produced quickly and cheaply for daily news cycles. However, the photographers who created these images were denied the proper credit and compensation.

The era?

Photo:Teacherspayteachers

Photo of yellow journalism.

The Penny Press era ran from the 1830s to the 1880s, so half-tone was at the very end; the halftone truly belongs to the Yellow Press era.

Hearst and Pulitzer fully exploited this technology. These types of newspapers would use sensational headlines and extensive photographs to attract the masses. 

Today...

Newspapers, magazines, books, and so much more still rely on a variation of the invention that Fredrick Eugene Ives came up with. The printing technology that we have now and have had for the past half a century would not have been possible without this original invention of the crossline screen.

Photo:Alchetron

A photograph of the original crossline. 

Digital printing has refined the technique, but the principle remains: by breaking an image into dots and
then reproducing it over and over.

To say the half-tone made photographic imagery accessible for mass audiences for the first time. It transformed journalism from just text-based to a visually rich experience. Many times, people take for granted the experience we so easily get to have.

Halftone photography bridged the penny press era and yellow journalism era. Which fundamentally changed how people consumed information and experienced the world. It gave us photojournalism, visual storytelling, and the image saturated media landscape we know today.   

To plainly say it, the half-tone was as transformative for visual communication as the printing press was for text.

Disclaimer: I used Claude Ai for research(links), my script format.