Gradation (art)

Last updated
Crystal Gradation by Paul Klee, watercolour, 1921. Crystal Gradation.JPG
Crystal Gradation by Paul Klee, watercolour, 1921.

In the visual arts, gradation is the technique of gradually transitioning from one hue to another, or from one shade to another, or one texture to another. Space, distance, atmosphere, volume, and curved or rounded forms are some of the visual effects created with gradation. [1]

A gradient illustration, showing a gradation spectrum from black to white. Gradation.svg
A gradient illustration, showing a gradation spectrum from black to white.

Artists use a variety of methods to create gradation, depending upon the art medium, and the precise desired effect. Blending, shading, hatching and crosshatching are common methods. A fading effect can be created with pastels by using a torchon. [2]

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:

The great defect of all the processes of photolithography described in the last section is that they can only be applied with advantage to the reproduction of drawings or subjects in which the gradation of shade is shown by lines or dots separated by white spaces of varying sizes and at varying intervals apart, as in line or stipple engravings and lithographs in line and chalk. [3]

Example of a halftone reproduction of a photograph. Halftone example CMYK.png
Example of a halftone reproduction of a photograph.

A major innovation was the development of halftone 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. [4]

A photograph emphasizing gradation in the colour of autumn leaves in Yokoami, Tokyo, Japan. Autumn gradation.jpg
A photograph emphasizing gradation in the colour of autumn leaves in Yokoami, Tokyo, Japan.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photography</span> Creating images by recording light

Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed in many fields of science, manufacturing, and business, as well as its more direct uses for art, film and video production, recreational purposes, hobby, and mass communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pastel</span> Art medium consisting of powdered pigment in the form of a stick

A pastel is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those used to produce some other colored visual arts media, such as oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation. The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process. Pastels have been used by artists since the Renaissance, and gained considerable popularity in the 18th century, when a number of notable artists made pastel their primary medium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Halftone</span> Printing process

Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates continuous-tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size or in spacing, thus generating a gradient-like effect. "Halftone" can also be used to refer specifically to the image that is produced by this process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photojournalism</span> Using images to tell a news story

Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography by having a rigid ethical framework which demands an honest but impartial approach that tells a story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists contribute to the news media, and help communities connect with one other. They must be well-informed and knowledgeable, and are able to deliver news in a creative manner that is both informative and entertaining.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederic Eugene Ives</span>

Frederic Eugene Ives was a U.S. inventor who was born in Litchfield, Connecticut. In 1874–78 he had charge of the photographic laboratory at Cornell University. He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where in 1885 he was one of the founding members of the Photographic Society of Philadelphia. He was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal in 1893, the Edward Longstreth Medal in 1903, and the John Scott Medal in 1887, 1890, 1904 and 1906. His son Herbert E. Ives was a pioneer of television and telephotography, including color facsimile.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photogravure</span> Photographic printing technique

Photogravure is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained and then coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macro photography</span> Photography genre and techniques of extreme close-up pictures

Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size . By the original definition, a macro photograph is one in which the size of the subject on the negative or image sensor is life size or greater. In some senses, however, it refers to a finished photograph of a subject that is greater than life size.

Color printing or colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color. Any natural scene or color photograph can be optically and physiologically dissected into three primary colors, red, green and blue, roughly equal amounts of which give rise to the perception of white, and different proportions of which give rise to the visual sensations of all other colors. The additive combination of any two primary colors in roughly equal proportion gives rise to the perception of a secondary color. For example, red and green yields yellow, red and blue yields magenta, and green and blue yield cyan. Only yellow is counter-intuitive. Yellow, cyan and magenta are merely the "basic" secondary colors: unequal mixtures of the primaries give rise to perception of many other colors all of which may be considered "tertiary".

The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. Adams described the Zone System as "[...] not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939–40."

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 material from the unshielded areas of a substrate. Normally applied to metal, it can also be used on glass, plastic and other materials.

Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional photojournalism, or real life reportage, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hand-colouring of photographs</span> Manually applying colour to black-and-white photographs

Hand-colouring refers to any method of manually adding colour to a monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Hand-colouring is also known as hand painting or overpainting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Line art</span> 2-dimensional art style without gradations in shade or hue

Line art or line drawing is any image that consists of distinct straight lines or curves placed against a background, without gradations in shade (darkness) or hue (colour) Line art can use lines of different colours, although line art is usually monochromatic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital photography</span> Photography with a digital camera

Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is stored as a computer file ready for further digital processing, viewing, electronic publishing, or digital printing. It is a form of digital imaging based on gathering visible light.

A continuous tone image is one where each color at any point in the image is reproduced as a single tone, and not as discrete halftones, such as one single color for monochromatic prints, or a combination of halftones for color prints.

In the theory of photography, tone reproduction is the mapping of scene luminance and color to print reflectance or display luminance, with the aim of subjectively "properly" reproducing brightness and "brightness differences".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Kurtz (photographer)</span>

William Kurtz was a German-American artist, illustrator, and photographer. He was also a pioneer in the development of halftone printing of color photographs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fundus photography</span> Medical imaging of the eyes

Fundus photography involves photographing the rear of an eye, also known as the fundus. Specialized fundus cameras consisting of an intricate microscope attached to a flash enabled camera are used in fundus photography. The main structures that can be visualized on a fundus photo are the central and peripheral retina, optic disc and macula. Fundus photography can be performed with colored filters, or with specialized dyes including fluorescein and indocyanine green.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monochrome photography</span> Photography in which every point in the image has the same hue but different intensity

Monochrome photography is photography where each position on an image can record and show a different amount of light, but not a different hue. It includes all forms of black-and-white photography, which produce images containing shades of neutral grey ranging from black to white. Other hues besides grey, such as sepia, cyan, blue, or brown can also be used in monochrome photography. In the contemporary world, monochrome photography is mostly used for artistic purposes and certain technical imaging applications, rather than for visually accurate reproduction of scenes.

Stochastic screening or FM screening is a halftone process based on pseudo-random distribution of halftone dots, using frequency modulation (FM) to change the density of dots according to the gray level desired. Traditional amplitude modulation halftone screening is based on a geometric and fixed spacing of dots, which vary in size depending on the tone color represented. The stochastic screening or FM screening instead uses a fixed size of dots and a distribution density that varies depending on the color’s tone.

References

  1. Martin, Judy (1992). The Encyclopedia of Pastel Techniques. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press. p. 36. ISBN   1-56138-087-3.
  2. Martin, Judy (1992). The Encyclopedia of Pastel Techniques. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Running Press. p. 36. ISBN   1-56138-087-3.
  3. J. Waterhouse, Capt. (2007) [First published 1878]. "The British Journal of Photography". XXV. Oxford University: 518.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. Ralph Lambrecht; Ralph W. Lambrecht; Chris Woodhouse (2010). Way Beyond Monochrome 2e: Advanced Techniques for Traditional Black & White ... Focal Press. p. 124. ISBN   978-0-240-81625-8.