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Halftones
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White Paper, Black Ink
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| Some ideas can be conveyed effectively with only the most basic materials. For example, the theme of "Good vs. Evil" is easy to represent graphically using only white paper and black ink. Where we want to illustrate "good," we allow the white paper to remain pure and unblemished. Where we want to illustrate evil, we smother the paper with black ink.
But what if we want to convey a more complex idea than "Good vs. Evil?" For as you contemplate this finished piece, does it not leave you uneasy? It's powerful in its simplicity, yet... adolescent, extreme. Black and white alone are too harsh, too reductionist - the addition of shades of grey would do much to increase the emotionosophical impact! But if we only have white paper and black ink, how then can we achieve our artistic goals? |
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Halftone Screening
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| The solution to our dilemma is to use "halftone screening" a process that allows us to approximate shades of gray while using only black ink. If we want to see a light gray, we print a bunch of small black dots, evenly spaced. If we want to see a medium gray, we print larger black dots. If we want a dark gray, we print black dots that are large enough to overlap, covering most, but not all of the surface with black ink. If we want black, the spaces in between the dots disappear, and the ink covers the surface completely.
The dots are printed small enough to escape the individual attention of the human eye. The eye mixes the color of the ink and the color of the paper showing through together. We call the mixture a "tint" of the original ink, a term that comes down to us from the traditional practice of mixing colored paint with white to produce a lighter color.
The same principle of "halftoning" can be applied when using inks other than black. Perhaps you see the world in shades of green rather than shades of gray... |
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