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The Ben Day process is a
"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 needed, small coloured dots are closely spaced, widely spaced, or overlapping.
"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, 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.
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 ...
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 mat ...
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. (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 int ...
or 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 ...
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 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 blu ...
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 ob ...
and secondary colours.
The process differs from the halftone 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 photographically 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 com ...
, 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, 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.
See also
*Dither
Dither is an intentionally applied form of noise used to randomize quantization error, preventing large-scale patterns such as color banding in images. Dither is routinely used in processing of both digital audio and video data, and is often ...
* Letratone
Screentone is a technique for applying textures and shades to drawings, used as an alternative to hatching. In the conventional process, patterns are transferred to paper from preprinted sheets. It is also known by the common brand names Zip-A- ...
* Pointillism
* Hatching (heraldry)
Hatching (sometimes called ''hachure'', from the French word) is a conventional system for monochrome denotation of heraldic armory, whereby the tinctures (colours) are represented by dots and lines. This technique is employed in cases where col ...
, the representation of color by monochrome lines.
* Polka dot
References
{{authority control Printing processes Dot patterns Engraving