The Ben Day process is a

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...

and

photoengraving Photoengraving is a process that uses a light-sensitive photoresist applied to the surface to be engraved to create a mask that protects some areas during a subsequent operation which etches, dissolves, or otherwise removes some or all of the mate ...

technique for producing areas of grey or (with four-colour printing) various colours by using fine patterns of ink on the paper. It was developed in 1879 by illustrator and printer

Benjamin Henry Day Jr. Benjamin Henry Day Jr. (March 7, 1838Dwight, Benjamin Woodbridge. The history of the descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Mass', p. 974 (1874) – August 30, 1916) was an illustrator and printer, best known for his invention of Ben-Day dots.

(son of 19th-century publisher Benjamin Henry Day). The process is commonly described in terms of Ben Day dots, but other shapes can be used, such as

parallel lines In geometry, parallel lines are coplanar straight lines that do not intersect at any point. Parallel planes are planes in the same three-dimensional space that never meet. ''Parallel curves'' are curves that do not touch each other or inters ...

texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Surface texture, the texture means smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface characteristics with waves shorter than road roughness * Texture (c ...

s.Edmund F. Russ (Oct 1919
"The Ben Day Process"
''Western Advertising'', Vol. 1 No. 9, pp. 5-&c, Ramsey Oppenheim Co., San Francisco Depending on the effect, colour, or

optical illusion Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual perception, percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide v ...

needed, small coloured dots are closely spaced, widely spaced, or overlapping.

Magenta Magenta () is a color that is variously defined as pinkish- purplish-red, reddish-purplish-pink or mauvish-crimson. On color wheels of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located exactly midway between red and blue. I ...

dots, for example, are widely spaced to create pink, or an interleaved pattern of cyan and yellow dots might be used to produce a medium green. The technique has been commonly used in colour

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

s, especially in the mid-20th century, to inexpensively create

shading Shading refers to the depiction of depth perception in 3D models (within the field of 3D computer graphics) or illustrations (in visual art) by varying the level of darkness. Shading tries to approximate local behavior of light on the object's ...

and

secondary colour A secondary color is a color made by color mixing, mixing of two primary colors in a given color space. Additive secondaries Light (RGB) For the human eye, good primary colors of light are red, green, and blue. Combining lights of these colo ...

s. The process differs from the

halftone Halftone is the reprographic Reprography (a portmanteau of ''reproduction'' and ''photography'') is the reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means, such as photography or xerography. Reprography is commonly used in catal ...

dots, which can vary continuously in size to produce gradations of shading or colour, and are commonly produced from photographs. Ben Day dots are of equal size and distribution across a specific area and are commonly applied to line art or graphic designs. To apply the drops, the artist would cut the appropriate shapes from transparent overlay sheets, which were available in a wide variety of dot sizes and distribution, to provide a range of tones to use. When

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

ically reproduced as a line cut for

letterpress printing Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker comp ...

, the areas of Ben Day overlay provided the effect of tonal shading to the printing plate.Willard C. Brinton (1919
"Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts"
''Industrial Engineering and Engineering Digest'', Vol. 14, No. 12, p. 466, New York Ben Day dots have been used deliberately, usually to evoke their use in color comics. They were a hallmark of American artist

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. Hi ...

, who enlarged and exaggerated them in many of his paintings and sculptures, to evoke the printing technique used in the comic book illustrations he commonly copied. The animated feature film '' Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse'' (2018) uses a variety of visual styles, including illustrations with visible Ben Day dots.

References

{{authority control Printing processes Dot patterns Engraving

See also

References