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In the 
Artists use a variety of methods to create gradation, depending upon the
A major innovation was the development of 
In the visual arts
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...
, gradation is the technique
Technique or techniques may refer to:
Music
* The Techniques, a Jamaican rocksteady vocal group of the 1960s
* Technique (band), a British female synth pop band in the 1990s
* ''Technique'' (album), by New Order, 1989
* ''Techniques'' (album), by ...
of gradually transitioning from one hue
In color theory, hue is one of the properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that are described as ...
to another, or from one shade
Shade, Shades or Shading may refer to:
* Shade (color), a mixture of a color with black (often generalized as any variety of a color)
* Shade (shadow), the blocking of sunlight
* Shades or sunglasses
* Shading, a process used in art and graphic ...
to another, or one texture
Texture may refer to:
Science and technology
* Image texture, the spatial arrangement of color or intensities in an image
* Surface texture, the smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object
* Texture (roads), road surface c ...
to another. Space, distance, atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...
, volume, and curved or rounded forms are some of the visual effects created with gradation.
Artists use a variety of methods to create gradation, depending upon the art medium
Media, or mediums, are the core types of material (or related other tools) used by an artist, composer, designer, etc. to create a work of art. For example, a visual artist may broadly use the media of painting or sculpting, which themselves have ...
, and the precise desired effect. Blending, 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 ...
, hatching
Hatching () is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. When lines are placed at an angle to one another, it is called cross-hatching. Hatching is als ...
and crosshatching are common methods. A fading effect can be created with pastels
A pastel () is an art medium that consists of powdered pigment and a binder (material), binder. It can exist in a variety of forms, including a stick, a square, a pebble, and a pan of color, among other forms. The pigments used in pastels are ...
by using a torchon.
Gradation in photography
Gradation can also be useful in composing photographs. The early decades of the development of photography involved much effort and experimentation aimed at improving gradation detail in photographs. Different materials were tested in producing lithographs and early photographs, with steady improvement in producing detailed gradation. In 1878, one photographer wrote:
A major innovation was the development of halftone
Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone, continuous-tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size or in spacing, thus generating a gradient-like effect.Campbell, Alastair. ''The Designer's Lexicon''. ...
photography in the late 19th century. Halftone photography involves creating a reproduction of an original photograph by taking an image of it using a Photomechnical transfer camera (PMT), with a halftone screen as an intermediary tool to create gradation in the final reproduction. Halftone screens are a plate or film, made up of a continuous pattern of small dots, and when used in a photomechanical transfer camera, the halftone screen serves as an image filter. The invention of halftone photography was an important milestone, allowing photographs to be reproduced for mass publication in newspapers and magazines.
Analog photography is limited by the materials and equipment used by the photographer to capture gradation. These constraints are eliminated in digital photography, where software can be used to manipulate photograph images to create gradation.
References
{{Branches of the visual arts Artistic techniques