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Original copy material - Continuous tone Colour original

This series of images form my Equivalence series (pigment prints combined with charcoal drawings) needed to need copied for publication and web use.


A continuous tone colour original is an image like a colour photograph or a painting where there is a continuous range of tones from black through various shades of grey to white and also colours - hues, etc. We might need to copy this because it is the only image in existence - the negative might have been lost or miss-placed.

 

 

Detail of a continuous tone image. Note the smooth gradation of tone ( especially in the mid greys) - from dark to light.

 

Like black and white photographs or images, colour images published in books appear to have a continuous range of tones. However this is an illusion which is created by thousands of dots of various colours.

Detail of a course half tone screen image. In the printing industry photographs are scanned with a half tone screen, which breaks the image up into a series of dots that can pick the ink up and pressed onto the paper. In the black areas the dots are closer – in the white areas they are further apart.


With colour a series of four dots ar printed onto the paper,- cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

Areas to pay attention to when copying a continuous tone colour original

• Faithful reproduction of colour & tones – no loss of tonal detail in blacks or whites - no colour cast in the high lights
• Sharp image from edge to edge of image
Even illumination of original
• Tonal enhancement using filters if required

No perspective distortion in the copy
• No camera or light reflections in the copy

 

 

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