searching for offset plugin

M
Posted By
medform-norm
Sep 30, 2004
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2806
Replies
48
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Closed
Hi,

I would appreciate advice/help/tips for the following:
I’m currently developing a work-flow strategy for
reproducing/recreating images from old glossy coffee-table photobooks from, say, the 50s. Mostly black and white. Perhaps you may have noticed this before, but these images have very specific characteristics. One of them is that you can see -if you look closely – that they were printed with (now) old fashioned type of offset plates. The greys are often soft and diffused, there are shadows/hues from the plates, there is a visible dot, loss of sharpness when compared to modern photography/print.

This effect is something that I’m striving to reproduce in Photoshop. I’ve been looking at halftone processes, but I think I need a special filter. Can’t find one, though. The other option (well, the one that I came up with) would be to have new cliché plates made, then scan these into the computer and tweak them in PS. This is something which will cost money and time, henceforth something to avoid.

Is there anybody that can give other tips and solutions to easily recreate this "special fifties feeling"? FIY, I work on Mac platform and prefer PS, although I can also use Quark or Illustrator.

Thanks for your replies!

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J
jjs
Sep 30, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message
Hi,

I would appreciate advice/help/tips for the following:
I’m currently developing a work-flow strategy for
reproducing/recreating images from old glossy coffee-table photobooks from, say, the 50s. Mostly black and white. Perhaps you may have noticed this before, but these images have very specific characteristics. […]

If you are imagining that they have that look because of plate (offset) misalignments, then note that B&W images were made with one plate. No opportunity for layer annoyances. But you are right that the halftones, printing ink and paper and the single-pass for B&W pictures is repsonsible for most of the ‘look’.

Two ways to get what you want: have the book printed cheap or learn Photoshop’s many ways of doing the same.

Do look into dithering, halftones, post-processing using reduced number of greys.

Is there anybody that can give other tips and solutions to easily recreate this "special fifties feeling"? FIY, I work on Mac platform and prefer PS, although I can also use Quark or Illustrator.

Quark and Illustrator won’t hack it for this work. Ever.
T
toby
Oct 1, 2004
(medform-norm) wrote in message news:…
Hi,

I would appreciate advice/help/tips for the following:
I’m currently developing a work-flow strategy for
reproducing/recreating images from old glossy coffee-table photobooks from, say, the 50s. Mostly black and white. Perhaps you may have noticed this before, but these images have very specific characteristics. One of them is that you can see -if you look closely – that they were printed with (now) old fashioned type of offset plates. The greys are often soft and diffused, there are shadows/hues from the plates, there is a visible dot, loss of sharpness when compared to modern photography/print.

Photogravure. Much nicer, subjectively, than offset. The closest we have in modern process is stochastic screening. That can often achieve a similar feel; you’ll never get it with a conventional halftone and offset lithography.

–Toby

This effect is something that I’m striving to reproduce in Photoshop. I’ve been looking at halftone processes, but I think I need a special filter. Can’t find one, though. The other option (well, the one that I came up with) would be to have new cliché plates made, then scan these into the computer and tweak them in PS. This is something which will cost money and time, henceforth something to avoid.

Is there anybody that can give other tips and solutions to easily recreate this "special fifties feeling"? FIY, I work on Mac platform and prefer PS, although I can also use Quark or Illustrator.
Thanks for your replies!
J
jjs
Oct 1, 2004
"Toby Thain"

Photogravure. Much nicer, subjectively, than offset. The closest we have in modern process is stochastic screening. That can often achieve a similar feel; you’ll never get it with a conventional halftone and offset lithography.

Toby, the OP wants poor results replicating the shortcoming of whatever particular fifties publisher he imagines (god only knows which one), and you are pointing to improvements such as stochastic screening! It wasn’t available then. I think he should go to CS’s bitmap paradigm and suffer it out like the pioneers did. So who wants to give away their bitmap halftone secrets to a newbie looking for a quick fix? Not me.
M
medform-norm
Oct 1, 2004
If you are imagining that they have that look because of plate (offset) misalignments, then note that B&W images were made with one plate. No opportunity for layer annoyances. But you are right that the halftones,
printing ink and paper and the single-pass for B&W pictures is repsonsible for most of the ‘look’.

Thank you for your reply. I do know that B&W prints have only one plate! 😉 I was imagining that perhaps ‘strange things’ happened to the images after the one-plate printing process, having more to do with the drying of older offset inks typically used in these plate processes. But hey, I’m only guessing, I’m certainly no expert on offset printing.
Two ways to get what you want: have the book printed cheap or learn Photoshop’s many ways of doing the same.

Do look into dithering, halftones, post-processing using reduced number of greys.
Yes, I am doing a lot of homework on the wonderful treasures of PS that have hitherto escaped my eyes. I am making progress, but still, it would be so darn easy if there would be a plugin available that does it all in 3 minutes.

Like, there are plugins for imitating that old movie look (hairs and all), so in theory it sh/w/could be possible that within the same universe exists another plugin that mimicks old books…question is: does it? If so, where?

Or is it easier to write your own plugin – or get someone nice to write it for you?

Quark and Illustrator won’t hack it for this work. Ever.

Hmm, I s’pose you’re right. What about other Adobe Software?
J
jjs
Oct 1, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message […]

Your aspiration is very interesting, and there is no quck answer other than finding a good old-fashion, cheap printer to make your book except one other consideration and that concerns modern photography compared to the photographic input the originals made, but that is another issue possibly best addressed by a photography group.

Others here could help by submitting their Mode – Bitmap – Halftone recommendations if they remember the original fifties metrics. Frankly, I am embarassed to admit I’ve forgotten. I do have some attempts to replicate it, but the output is too large to display on a website (FAPP, they are the nominal 300"dpi" ouput and don’t scale to screen resolutions properly.)

So, with luck some old printers will come out here to give the metrics for Photoshop CS.
MR
Mike Russell
Oct 1, 2004
medform-norm wrote:
Hi,

I would appreciate advice/help/tips for the following:
I’m currently developing a work-flow strategy for
reproducing/recreating images from old glossy coffee-table photobooks from, say, the 50s. Mostly black and white. Perhaps you may have noticed this before, but these images have very specific characteristics. One of them is that you can see -if you look closely – that they were printed with (now) old fashioned type of offset plates. The greys are often soft and diffused, there are shadows/hues from the plates, there is a visible dot, loss of sharpness when compared to modern photography/print.

This effect is something that I’m striving to reproduce in Photoshop. I’ve been looking at halftone processes, but I think I need a special filter. Can’t find one, though. The other option (well, the one that I came up with) would be to have new clich
M
medform-norm
Oct 1, 2004
Toby, the OP wants poor results replicating the shortcoming of whatever particular fifties publisher he imagines (god only knows which one), and you are pointing to improvements such as stochastic screening! It wasn’t available then. I think he should go to CS’s bitmap paradigm and suffer it out like the pioneers did. So who wants to give away their bitmap halftone secrets to a newbie looking for a quick fix? Not me.

Well, JJS, I see you are quite frank about your point of view. Elucidating!
FIY, I am NOT a newbie looking for a quick fix. I am looking for people who might be able to point me to a time-saving solution for a process that I am otherwise capable to handle. I am not afraid of work, nor unwilling to pay for the pioneering work of others. I BUY plugins, I don’t scavenge newsgroups for free info. That is why I could tell you about my experiences with PowerRetouche tools, which parts work and which don’t.

Toby, thank you for your advice. I have indeed looked at stochastic screening , but that would be too expensive as an in-house solution for the small company that we have. It is not a specific publisher that we are trying to emulate, it’s shortcomings of B&W plate printing, where dust adhering to the plates cause image faults and so forth. Source material can range from books on architecture to manual for sewing machines, but pretty much all "functional photography." And it is not a whole book we are printing, but ‘pages’ from a hypothetical book. That is why we cannot go to a cheap printer, since we are doing art prints in very limited edition, not a mass-produced book!

I picked this forum to post on, as it seemed the most likely one to meet someone who would know where to get the desired plugin, or who could give advice on writing your own plugins. I don’t think my question belongs in the photog section. Is there perhaps a forum dedicated to offset printing that I am not aware of? If so, please tell me.
J
jjs
Oct 1, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message

FIY, I am NOT a newbie looking for a quick fix. I am looking for people who might be able to point me to a time-saving solution for a process that I am otherwise capable to handle.

I say go the Bitmap Halftone route. You can even add "dust sticking to the plates" effect using random noise.

There is no need to "write a plugin". An action will suffice. If I have time later today I’ll post an example, but the picture will be very late fifties.

Source material can range from books on architecture to manual for sewing machines, but pretty much all "functional photography." And it is not a whole book we are printing, but ‘pages’ from a hypothetical book. That is why we cannot go to a cheap printer, since we are doing art prints in very limited edition, not a mass-produced book!

Cheap is cheap. I don’t understand what Fine Art has to do with it.
T
tacitr
Oct 1, 2004
One of them is that you can see -if you look closely
– that they were printed with (now) old fashioned type of offset
plates. The greys are often soft and diffused, there are shadows/hues
from the plates, there is a visible dot, loss of sharpness when compared to modern photography/print.

Because these effects were a consequence of poorly-made plates, it will be difficult to reproduce these effects with modern printing.

Part of the problem is that the effect you describe was partly a consequence of soft halftone dots. You can’t really simulate that effect with modern printing, because the halftone dots are quite hard, and you can’t fake it because if you put a grey shadow around the halftone dots in the scan, that grey shadow will need to be halftoned before it can be printed, and the effect is lost.

The ink smears and the softness of the halftone on old prints are both analog effects; the ink is actually drawn across the paper. Attempts to simulate both of these kind of effects will be tricky at best.

One thing you might try is to create a halftone yourself at a very high resolution (IMage-Mode->Bitmap, use a halftone at 45 degrees, elliptical dot, output resolution at east 1200 dpi, output halftone 85 lines). Then convert the bitmap back to grayscale, and distort the halftone using a small Blur or Motion Blur (the former to simulate soft halftone dots, the latter to simulate ink smear).

Then send the resuting grayscale image to be printed. The smear effects and blur effects will be halftoned when youprint the piece, of course; for best results, use a very high resolution halftone–175 lines or higher–so the fact that the blur and "softness" have been simulated will be less noticeable, and to minimize a collision moire between the halftone the piece is printed with and the halftone you created.


Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
T
toby
Oct 1, 2004
"jjs" …
"Toby Thain"

Photogravure. Much nicer, subjectively, than offset. The closest we have in modern process is stochastic screening. That can often achieve a similar feel; you’ll never get it with a conventional halftone and offset lithography.

Toby, the OP wants poor results replicating the shortcoming of whatever particular fifties publisher he imagines (god only knows which one), and you are pointing to improvements such as stochastic screening! It wasn’t available then. I think he should go to CS’s bitmap paradigm and suffer it out like the pioneers did. So who wants to give away their bitmap halftone secrets to a newbie looking for a quick fix? Not me.

Au contraire. The OP was describing, exactly, works printed photogravure, which I too have admired for years for their beautiful subjective quality. One tends to find this among coffee table and art books printed in the 50s, 60s and 70s, and many magazines, in colour and mono work. There are no "shortcomings" here, just significant aesthetic differences from offset lithography, which is cold and flat by comparison.

The digital answer does tend to lie in the area of bitmap generation. Since CristalRaster circa 1992 I have spent years investigating ways of improving upon the conventional halftone, and I soon realised that stochastic screening could give offset lithography many of the same subjective qualities. Over 10 years ago I wrote a Photoshop plugin to produce high-res stochastic bitmaps, with various additions over time, it is still for sale on my web site,
http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/#rastus

Few people use it for offset printing, because in-RIP stochastic solutions are more convenient. But the plugin has become popular with alternative process photographers who are seeking near-continuous tone results with contact prints. They cite exactly the same qualities that led me to be interested in stochastic halftoning – the subjective beauty of grain that is suppressed by conventional dot screening, rendered in perfect clarity by stochastic screening, and is an inherent mechanical part of gravure process.

I stand by my statement; from all I’ve seen, stochastic screening has been the closest offset litho can come to the "feel" of photogravure.

If the OP is looking for a way of distorting an image and rendering it through *conventional* halftone process to simulate that feel, I can’t help.

–Toby
J
jjs
Oct 1, 2004
"Toby Thain" wrote in message
"jjs" wrote in message
news:…

Toby, the OP wants poor results replicating the shortcoming of whatever particular fifties publisher he imagines (god only knows which one), and you
are pointing to improvements such as stochastic screening! It wasn’t available then. I think he should go to CS’s bitmap paradigm and suffer it
out like the pioneers did. So who wants to give away their bitmap halftone
secrets to a newbie looking for a quick fix? Not me.

Au contraire. The OP was describing, exactly, works printed photogravure,

Well if he was talking about photogravure, then he had a strange way of putting it. He has insisted that he knew what he was talking about "fifties B&W photographs printed" such as those in common magazines (full of defects such as dust). I took it to mean publications like Life Magazine and possibly worse repro quality. Photogravure was, and is, far too expensive for consumer grade magazines, and to allow dust to show in such a high-end printing method is inexcusable. But he wants dusts, too.

So I don’t really think he’s talking photogravure. If he was, then he doesn’t need do degrade the quality of the output. Instead, he needs to do sophisticated dutones or tritones.

If you want to put a new subject line on your post, I’m sure it will serve better to address photogravure interests rather than what the OP wants – if he really knows what he wants.
T
toby
Oct 1, 2004
(medform-norm) wrote in message news:…
… It is not a specific publisher
that we are trying to emulate, it’s shortcomings of B&W plate printing, where dust adhering to the plates cause image faults and so forth. Source material can range from books on architecture to manual for sewing machines, but pretty much all "functional photography."

It’s likely that much of the period material you are looking at is not printed by offset lithography, but by (photo)gravure, which has a specific and recognisable quality resembling your description. Most of the photographic and art books (particularly the better quality ones) that I own from those decades, fall into this category.

I picked this forum to post on, as it seemed the most likely one to meet someone who would know where to get the desired plugin, or who could give advice on writing your own plugins.

If you can’t find another solution, then I can definitely help you build a custom plugin. There is abundant sample code on my site, http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/

–Toby

I don’t think my
question belongs in the photog section. Is there perhaps a forum dedicated to offset printing that I am not aware of? If so, please tell me.
J
jjs
Oct 1, 2004
"Toby Thain" wrote in message
(medform-norm) wrote in message
news:…
… It is not a specific publisher
that we are trying to emulate, it’s shortcomings of B&W plate printing, where dust adhering to the plates cause image faults and so forth. Source material can range from books on architecture to manual for sewing machines, but pretty much all "functional photography."

It’s likely that much of the period material you are looking at is not printed by offset lithography, but by (photo)gravure,

Your agenda for photogravure is pretty clear, but what photogravure would have _dust_ in the prints, for God’s sake?

None of the photogravures I have evince dust. It would be a crime.
T
tacitr
Oct 1, 2004
It’s likely that much of the period material you are looking at is not printed by offset lithography, but by (photo)gravure, which has a specific and recognisable quality resembling your description.

I re-read the original post, and I still don’t believe that what he’s describing is photogravure. It sounds to me like the effects he’s describing are consistent with offset lithography with a coarse halftone, with shadowing around the halftone dots. Before digital printing, it was common to see this knd of shadowing, as the film used had lower contrast than modern films and was often contact printed several times before the plates were burned; the individual dots tended to become soft-edged.

I think it would be helpful if the original poster can put an example, preferably a small section of one of the printed pieces scanned at a high resolution. I’m betting what we’ll see are shadowing and ink smear on an offset litho piece.


Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more:
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
M
medform-norm
Oct 2, 2004
Hi,

I just got back from working somewhere else than behind a computer – it is still possible! – and I saw many new posts. I see an interesting discussion has developed, resulting, I think, from a language problem. It is hard for me to translate printer’s jargon into correct English and I am sorry if I caused any confusion.
In order to solve this problem, I shall put a scan online soon, first have to find a webhoster for that. But I think that it might be photogravure indeed, judging from what is said about it. I am reading all the replies carefully and will check links given when there is time -maybe on Sunday – and after considering all this new info carefully, will report back here!

Thanks for all your thoughts!

P.S. Has anyone considered I could be a she 😉 — not that it matters for the subject at hand.
DD
Dave Du Plessis
Oct 2, 2004
On 2 Oct 2004 15:13:59 -0700, (medform-norm)
wrote:

Hi,

. I see an interesting
discussion has developed, resulting, I think, from a language problem. It is hard for me to translate printer’s jargon into correct English and I am sorry if I caused any confusion.

and yòu complain? How about people
who’s home language is not English:-)
You are talking about ‘correct English’
while I hope to be understand:-)))

Dave
M
medform-norm
Oct 3, 2004
and yòu complain? How about people
who’s home language is not English:-)
You are talking about ‘correct English’
while I hope to be understand:-)))

Dave

Hi Dave,

I am not complaining, perhaps only about my own inability to use precise enough language to help this discussion. And, FYI, English is not my mother tongue at all, I speak Dutch in daily life! Which means you and I should be able to converse in our respective national languages and understand eachother pretty well. But that is leading off the topic!

I still have had no time to put a portion of the images under discussion on the web, but I did take a reallll close look at them. It seems they are neither what is properly termed offset, nor photogravure, but maybe they are what is termed by some as ‘autotypy’ or ‘zinkography’. I suspect the prints are made using metal plates (not necessarily copper, more likely some cheaper metal), on which the photographic image is etched. This etched (rasterized!) image is then by means of a machinated mass-production process inked with rollers and then pressed on the paper.

This continuous inking has the effect that the borders of the plate get more ink and the reproduced image shows up with a thinnish darker line around the edges. What you also see is thin white lines, caused by either a hair or a scratch in the plate. Also typical are small black dots on the printed image, surrounded by a white halo, IMHO caused by dirt/dust on the plate. Or you see small white dots in the image, with no halo. And most of the times, grey areas like skies can look slightly blotchy and uneven. The raster is very fine, not visible unless you look at ‘kissing distance". Prints have not real fat, saturated blacks, a lot of very nice grey midtones and no real white either. (Typical of rasterization?). Overall appearence of the images is rather light and soft, although they can have enough contrast. I find them pleasing to look at, not coarse at all – like newspaper print). The paper used seems heavily coated and what we call ‘gestreken’ – as if ironed? The surface is semi-glossy. I think this is the kind of art print paper that tends to get very brittle over time and can break-tear easily if you’re not careful.

We are looking into the possibility of buying a second hand Epson 3000 or newer and using Quad BW inks to make small edition prints from modern photographs. We want to do part of the process in Photoshop for reasons of manipulation. The Quad inks (piezography) can print very deep black so we need tight control over rasterization of the end result.

For anyone wondering why the hell we want to do this: we are visual artists currently entertaining/persuing a certain idea of rendering a certain type of photo in a very specific way. Is it doable? is a question we would like to be able to answer to a certain degree before going off and spending several hundred bucks on software, equipment, ink and papers. It’s not nice to be disappointed with the end result just because you didn’t do your research properly.

I hope this helps until the proto-image has been digitalized and put on the web.
J
jjs
Oct 3, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message

[… about English skills …]

Not to worry; your English is better than most Americans’.

[…]

It would be helpful if we knew if the prints in question were published in a book, magazine, or posters or singular prints, and when they were originally printed. Earlier you mentioned that you thought they were done in the fifties, but it could be that you have copies of earlier photographs merely printed in the fifties, thus aquiring more artifacts.

For anyone wondering why the hell we want to do this: we are visual artists currently entertaining/persuing a certain idea of rendering a certain type of photo in a very specific way. Is it doable?

We have a mutual interest, and I believe persons involved in "alternate photographic" processes would be most helpfull. Once we understand exactly what kind of picture you wish to emulate, then we can approach a digital solution – if it is even possible. So, if you like we can divide the search between us to find the best resources. Please let me know.

(I have photogravures and none show the artifacts you mention.)
DD
Dave Du Plessis
Oct 3, 2004
On 3 Oct 2004 07:41:56 -0700, (medform-norm)
wrote:

and yòu complain? How about people
who’s home language is not English:-)
You are talking about ‘correct English’
while I hope to be understand:-)))

Dave

Hi Dave,

I am not complaining, perhaps only about my own inability to use precise enough language to help this discussion. And, FYI, English is not my mother tongue at all, I speak Dutch in daily life! Which means you and I should be able to converse in our respective national languages and understand eachother pretty well. But that is leading off the topic!
while knowing that it is off-topic, I could not stop myself answering this portion of your letter:-) Like you said – we are able to communicate in our respective national languages Dutch is indeed one of the Afrikaans dialects, is it not?:-)))…o

The rest will be left for the specialists on the topic.

Dave

I still have had no time to put a portion of the images under discussion on the web, but I did take a reallll close look at them.
….
J
jjs
Oct 3, 2004
"DD" wrote in message

while knowing that it is off-topic, I could not stop myself answering this portion of your letter:-) Like you said – we are able to communicate in our respective national languages Dutch is indeed one of the Afrikaans dialects, is it not?:-)))…o

Afrikaans is something like a ratified Dutch – more regular, rational, civilized. 🙂
M
medform-norm
Oct 3, 2004
"jjs" …
"DD" wrote in message

while knowing that it is off-topic, I could not stop myself answering this portion of your letter:-) Like you said – we are able to communicate in our respective national languages Dutch is indeed one of the Afrikaans dialects, is it not?:-)))…o

Afrikaans is something like a ratified Dutch – more regular, rational, civilized. 🙂

har har, jjs, suddenly a language connaisseur? ;^) Any other things up your sleeve that we should know about? Do not tempt me to describe the relationship between English and what comes out of Bush’s mouth. I might not be so jocular.

And what do you mean you are in a similar pursuit? What is it you’re after?

For those who really want to know all the nitty-gritty details, I am working on putting the images on-line right now this night. These fine examples come from a coffee-table type book on post-WW2 Dutch architecture published in 1953. The pics cannot be older than 1945 — obviously! In the colofon there is explicit mention of plates having been used for the reproductions.

And now a word for our Suid-Afrikaanse readers:

"Die fotos sal bietjie lank neem on te laai maar dit is nodig om die kwaliteit te behou".

Good night, America!
J
jjs
Oct 3, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message
"jjs" wrote in message
news:…
"DD" wrote in message

while knowing that it is off-topic, I could not stop myself answering this portion of your letter:-) Like you said – we are able to communicate in our respective national languages Dutch is indeed one of the Afrikaans dialects, is it not?:-)))…o

Afrikaans is something like a ratified Dutch – more regular, rational, civilized. 🙂

har har, jjs, suddenly a language connaisseur? ;^) Any other things up your sleeve that we should know about? Do not tempt me to describe the relationship between English and what comes out of Bush’s mouth. I might not be so jocular.

You need not be kind to Bush. I am not. In fact, I don’t know anyone who is.

And what do you mean you are in a similar pursuit? What is it you’re after?

I am a photographer and graphic artist, so such efforts interest me.

For those who really want to know all the nitty-gritty details, I am working on putting the images on-line right now this night. These fine examples come from a coffee-table type book on post-WW2 Dutch architecture published in 1953. The pics cannot be older than 1945 — obviously! In the colofon there is explicit mention of plates having been used for the reproductions.

That information helps. It also helps to know where it was printed. It might be possible to research the exact method if we know the publisher’s name and date of printing.

And now a word for our Suid-Afrikaanse readers:

"Die fotos sal bietjie lank neem on te laai maar dit is nodig om die kwaliteit te behou".

No rush, and thanks for your trouble.
M
medform-norm
Oct 4, 2004
One way to get the look you want might be with a custom halftone screen pattern.

1) Find one of your old images with a nice, large swath of gray, scan it in, cut and paste an area of solid gray to a new image.

2) Use a combination of levels to up the contrast, and blur to get the histogram containing a wide variety of shades of gray, but without losing that textured gravure look that you’re after. Don’t worry about making this perfect, since you want to preserve a relatively rough effect.
3) Select all, and define the image as a pattern.

4) Get a target image, convert it to grayscale if necessary, then to bitmap, specifying a custom pattern for your halftoning method. Ignore the vertical and horizontal patterns due to the tiling for now. If you’re otherwise happy with the look, continue to the next step. Otherwise, go back to step 2 and re-modify your pattern as you see fit.

5) Now, make your halftone pattern seamless using the method in janee’s tutorial:
http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/tilings/tilings.htm

6) Save effort by recording this into an action, and you’re ready for mass production!

Other thoughts. Rather than scanning a swath of gray, it may turn out to be easier to use gaussian noise, sharpening, and even Photoshop’s artistic filter effects to create something similar to the photogravuere look. Merge this with your scanned swath of gray to get a hybrid between the old and the new. Experiment with scaling your pattern. If it is too rough, make your patter image half the size, and define a new pattern.

Hi Mike,

I like the idea of using actions rather than a filter, although I think I cannot apply what you suggest in this exact way – albeit very informative; it may come to use another time.

Perhaps I can make actions of specific detailed ‘faults’ of the printing process rather than of swathes of gray. Initially, i.e. when starting this thread, I was hoping to find something akin to VDL’s ‘oldmovie’ plugin (unfortunately not available for my OS). But perhaps I should learn to make actions from a number of separatable mistakes I can scan in from the images that I use as starting point? (Like white lines, darkish edges around the images, black spots with white halos, irregular sized white dots, etc.). They might be easier to select and work with in a later stage, when I can apply these ‘fault actions’ at random.

Examples of what I mean you shall soon find in this thread – am working on it. I have never done that before, but heck, why does one live if not to learn?! It should be exciting, as usual.
H
Hecate
Oct 4, 2004
On 3 Oct 2004 15:45:00 -0700, (medform-norm)
wrote:

For those who really want to know all the nitty-gritty details, I am working on putting the images on-line right now this night. These fine examples come from a coffee-table type book on post-WW2 Dutch architecture published in 1953. The pics cannot be older than 1945 — obviously! In the colofon there is explicit mention of plates having been used for the reproductions.
Alstubleift 🙂

And no, I’m English. Did you know that English and Dutch are the two most closely related languages of the Anglo-Saxon languages? Apparently it’s all due to those naughty Friesian Islanders putting their genes about 😉



Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui
J
jjs
Oct 4, 2004
"Hecate" wrote in message

Alstubleift 🙂

Spreekt er iemand Engels hier?
BV
Bart van der Wolf
Oct 4, 2004
"jjs" wrote in message
"Hecate" wrote in message

Alstubleift 🙂

Spreekt er iemand Engels hier?

Ja.

Bart
M
medform-norm
Oct 4, 2004
Alstubleift 🙂

Spreekt er iemand Engels hier?

Ich nicht, rede nur Deutsch, die Mutter aller Sprachen im Europäischen Großraum ;>|)

All kidding aside, I did post a message last night (I should say early morning, it was five o’ clock in the morn’) with description of faults, nice examples, etc.. but this posting has not yet appeared. I will try again later, but for those who want to have a
—)))*****!sneak preview!****((((—, you can try to visit:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hkeijser

The website works, maybe something wrong with my posting? Perhaps I’ve overdone on the HTML? (At which I’m far from an expert…)
M
medform-norm
Oct 4, 2004
Oh my, done something wrong there: suddenly I have made a new post somewhere else in this forum called "Images now online!" or something like that. And, geez, did I overdo the HTML-code there: now there are twin links to the images! Buy one, get one free…. Plus free HTML-code in the body text of the message.

I do apologize for this mistake and if there was/is one, I would pray to the gods of this forum to re-archive that post in the thread where it belongs.

Dat krijg je ervan als tot in de ochtenduren doorwerkt!
J
jjs
Oct 4, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hkeijser

Perfect! Now we can see what’s going on. Definitely not photogravure.

Just as I had imagined: simply poor quality printing and half-tone making. The half-tones evince just about every mistake that could be made. The ‘halo’ is from a bubble that formed on the reproduction film during development. (It was not in the original picture.) The irregular blacks can be from rough handling of the reproduction film during handling. The whites might be chaf from the printing process or debris in the platemaking process.

The muddy appearance has a lot to do with the choice of the paper and ink. Cheap, but not uncommon. (You see, it helps to be old enough to have lived through that stuff.)

NOW – HOW TO REPLICATE? Well, it’s not too hard. First, you want to make a coarse bitmap->halftone image. Then reset the mode to Greyscale and add another layer of 12% to 18% grey and mottle it to give the overall, uneven cast of the original inking.

For bubbles, holes and scratches you can create them via many means such as the stamp tool. I would consider making two or three layers of just the defects. Save those layers alone to use in other pictures, but vary the placement of the defect layers to give a more random outcome.

Does this help? I could cut an action to show you if you like. With luck, I can even find some LF negatives of architecture done in the same period.
M
medform-norm
Oct 4, 2004
NOW – HOW TO REPLICATE? Well, it’s not too hard. First, you want to make a
coarse bitmap->halftone image. Then reset the mode to Greyscale and add another layer of 12% to 18% grey and mottle it to give the overall, uneven cast of the original inking.

For bubbles, holes and scratches you can create them via many means such as the stamp tool. I would consider making two or three layers of just the defects. Save those layers alone to use in other pictures, but vary the placement of the defect layers to give a more random outcome.
Does this help? I could cut an action to show you if you like. With luck, I can even find some LF negatives of architecture done in the same period.

Hi JJS,

yes, this might help. I especially like the idea of the extra layer with another 12-18% grey, mottled. And we were already put on the track of making clone stamps, actions or layers and then applying this for randomly scattered effects, so it is nice to see other people advising along those same lines. However, we think some things might need to be applied before the bitmap step and some after, for a truer look. It seems the work lying ahead is starting to crystalize in something manageable.

It is hard to understand all you say in the other thread that was accidentally started.

"The block was not what was used to create the images you put
online."<

Of course that specific block was not used to create the image I put online. But that is probably not what you ment to say? I put the block online to show what the plates look like, and that it was not a photogravure, nor an offset plate. I am still convinced plates were used to create the images in the books as this is specifically mentioned in the colofon of the book. I never said it was the only thing that was used! Graphic film was of course used to be able to get the photos rasterized and then etched on printing plates. We suspect the book might have been printed on a 1950s Heidelberg.

The images of the buildings are mere crude scans to show where the blown up details come from. The details are blown up to the extreme to show all that is there. Let that not charm you into thinking the raster is a coarse one. You need a good magnifier to see them little dots!

I still am convinced this was not a cheap book to make, although they might not have done a perfect job – it wasn’t printed by Germans, you see. Of course it remains a mass production artefact and not a thousand dollar exclusive bibliofiliac production of a mere 50 copies with the most exquisite papers… SO, where does yor standard of cheap start and end?

Printers are Boosten & Stols in Maastricht. Have yet to look them up on the net. Book is hardcover with linnen, bound, paper is very very smooth, went through a press to make it this smooth. Paper inside shows discoloration towards a yellow tinge near the edges wherei it has seen most light.

I know it is not necessary (perhaps) to go into such detail and yes, we should concentrate on the topic of reproducing the feel of it, but it is just too frustrating that I do not quite understand all that you say in your other commentary.

I will be putting an image online of the type of printing equipment I think was used in making this book. The illustration shows a so-called ‘Illustratiepers" by the make of Planeta Druckmaschinenwerk and comes from a book for the graphic professional. (Grafische mededelingen by the famous Lettergieterij Amsterdam, voorheen Tetterode).

If you are as old as you make us believe to be, this should all sound very familiar to you?

Have to admit this discussion has gotten more interesting over time than I had expected at the onset .

~(oYo)~
M
medform-norm
Oct 4, 2004
Recent addition: illustration of the printing device that I think (IMHO) that was used to create the image shown above. Again, I could be wrong. If you think so, please tell me what machine was used IYO ..(But ahh, isn’t she pretty???)

Here she is:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hkeijser/planeta.html

Before I forget to say this: the images from the book were created (according to the books colofon) with cliché plates that had on previous occasions be used in magazines on building and architecture. This might explain the wear and tear they have suffered, such as scratches and dirt!!!
J
jjs
Oct 4, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message

Hi JJS,

yes, this might help. I especially like the idea of the extra layer with another 12-18% grey, mottled. And we were already put on the track of making clone stamps, actions or layers and then applying this for randomly scattered effects, so it is nice to see other people advising along those same lines. However, we think some things might need to be applied before the bitmap step and some after, for a truer look. It seems the work lying ahead is starting to crystalize in something manageable.

Whatever works for you is a good thing. My thinking is that the reproduction (halftoning) is largely at fault – that’s the dust, scratches and bubbles and done properly, they go ‘over’ the halftone. One exception that we probably agree on is the "mottling" (actually called Dot Gain).

Looking at AUTOTYP2.jpg it is clear that the original photograph was thorougly professionally done. I can almost guarantee the original prints had no defects, no uneveness in large similar-tone areas. Whomever did that photo would not have let a bad print pass. (I can tell by the perspective controls – rise and a bit of swing.) Of course, all the rest is reproduction errors.

"The block was not what was used to create the images you put
online."<

Of course that specific block was not used to create the image I put online. But that is probably not what you ment to say? I put the block online to show what the plates look like,

Are you certain that’s the kind of plate used? It looks like a much, much earlier technology than the fifties.

[…] Graphic film was of course used to be able to get
the photos rasterized and then etched on printing plates. We suspect the book might have been printed on a 1950s Heidelberg.

🙂 Let’s try not to impose modern concepts on the state-of-the art back then. No rasterizing. What they used was certainly "graphic" film in that it was a super high contrast, high density film. They still use that today. But it was a halftone. I find it interesting that the dots are round. There were other dots, such as half-dots, and so-forth which produced better results.

[…] SO, where does yor standard of cheap start and end?

You are right that ‘cheap’ has cultural metrics to consider, so the round dot might have been state-of-the-art there at the time.

Printers are Boosten & Stols in Maastricht. Have yet to look them up on the net. Book is hardcover with linnen, bound, paper is very very smooth, went through a press to make it this smooth. Paper inside shows discoloration towards a yellow tinge near the edges wherei it has seen most light.

Very good information! Thank you for that.

If you are as old as you make us believe to be, this should all sound very familiar to you?

Heck, I’m only 58 years-old, but I have diverse experience and I started early. BTW, I’ve some experience with British and Continental publishing, having lived in France (near Metz) and England (Oxford).
H
Hecate
Oct 5, 2004
On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 21:58:02 -0500, "jjs" wrote:

"Hecate" wrote in message

Alstubleift 🙂

Spreekt er iemand Engels hier?
LOL! Ja!



Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui
T
toby
Oct 5, 2004
(medform-norm) wrote in message news:…
and yòu complain? How about people
who’s home language is not English:-)
You are talking about ‘correct English’
while I hope to be understand:-)))

Dave

… It
seems they are neither what is properly termed offset, nor photogravure, but maybe they are what is termed by some as ‘autotypy’ or ‘zinkography’. I suspect the prints are made using metal plates (not necessarily copper, more likely some cheaper metal), on which the photographic image is etched. This etched (rasterized!) image is then by means of a machinated mass-production process inked with rollers and then pressed on the paper.

Perhaps letterpress engraved halftone blocks? This would also fit the period and description.

–Toby
M
medform-norm
Oct 5, 2004
Toby darling, this was the winning gamble! Thank you! With this clue I was able to identify the printing process for all people on board of this discussion in an unambiguous way, plus it enabled me to understand better how and at what production stage the specific characteristics could have gotten there in the first place.

I found these (rather arbitrarily picked) links explaining the process you mention on the net:

http://www.balanceresearch.com/museum/gallery/engrav01/apg02 03m.htm

and

http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/shimbi_shoin.shtml

where they write this about the process:

"Relief Halftone Printing (photo-engraving) (letterpress). A less expensive mechanical printing process [less expensive than photogravure is what they mean, MFM] know as relief halftone was perfected in the 1870s and came into widespread use in the 1880s. In this process, the photographic image is recorded on a sensitized metal plate which is then etched in an acid bath. The halftone effect is accomplished by projecting the image through a wire or glass screen, which breaks the light rays so that the metal plate is sensitized in a dotted pattern; the larger dots create the darker areas, the smaller dots the high lights. The finer the screen, the greater the precision of detail in the printed product. The printed images lack the definition provided by photographs or the collotype process. A photo-engraved relief halftone image is easy to identify. When you look at the image under even light magnification (x5 or x10) you see the series of dots that make up the image."

I would never have know the specific terms used for this in the English language. You say ‘engraving’ what I would call ‘etching’, but now I see these words can be used in place of each other. English is difficult enough as it is, but english spoken by printers is a whole different ballgame. (That is also why I only read Moby Dick for the first half, I got stuck in the very oldfashioned whaling and shipping jargon and had to give up).

HOWEVER, what remains unanswered for me is the question not so much of reproducing scratches and blotches, but the question how to reproduce this slightly darker edge around the images. Always a little irregular and jagged – I wouldn’t know how to put this into an
action/clonestamp, as each image is different in size (square, oblong, etc.) and in division of lighter and darker areas at the edge of the image. But perhaps this is something that needs to be done by hand for each individual image.

OTOH, my initial question (does a plugin exist?) has been answered (apparently not), so technically speaking y’all are doing me a big favor by suggesting workarounds for the non-existence of the plugin. Which I really honestly truly appreciate.
J
jjs
Oct 5, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message

I found these (rather arbitrarily picked) links explaining the process you mention on the net:

http://www.balanceresearch.com/museum/gallery/engrav01/apg02 03m.htm
and

http://www.baxleystamps.com/litho/shimbi_shoin.shtml

You were told from the very beginning that the images in question were dot half-tones. I’m giving up on you.
M
medform-norm
Oct 5, 2004
Well JJS,

I’ve never said they weren’t halftone dots, AFAIK! I’ve always said there was a language barriere to be overcome and that it was hard to explain what the images were like. I’m glad Toby hit the nail on the head, because now the topic can move forward and beyond the identification of images stage!

Perhaps it’s not nice to say, -and I certaintly don’t want to show any disrespect – but could it be that hearing aids aren’t the only things you need ??? (GRD)

If you want to give up on me, fine! I’ve stil got Toby.
DD
Dave Du Plessis
Oct 5, 2004
On 3 Oct 2004 15:45:00 -0700, (medform-norm)
wrote:
while knowing that it is off-topic, I could not stop myself answering this portion of your letter:-) Like you said – we are able to communicate in our respective national languages Dutch is indeed one of the Afrikaans dialects, is it not?:-)))…o

Afrikaans is something like a ratified Dutch – more regular, rational, civilized. 🙂

LOL… nothing will prevent me quoting the jjs words on the Afrikaans ng with its many NL friends:-)))

And now a word for our Suid-Afrikaanse readers:

"Die fotos sal bietjie lank neem on te laai maar dit is nodig om die kwaliteit te behou".

Good night, America!

en aan ons Nederlandse vriend:

Baie dankie. Ek gaan na daardie foto’s kyk… en jou Afrikaans, is onberispelik! Baie goeie Afrikaans dus

Goeie nag, Amerika!

Dave
J
jjs
Oct 5, 2004
"DD" wrote in message

LOL… nothing will prevent me quoting the jjs words on the Afrikaans ng with its many NL friends:-)))

The Swedes around here (and there are a lot of them) say that speaking Dutch is like barking. It just shows you how much those Swedes know, eh?
H
hkeispm0
Oct 5, 2004
The Swedes around here (and there are a lot of them) say that speaking Dutch is like barking. It just shows you how much those Swedes know, eh?

Actually, it sounds more like the Dutch have a permanent sore throat. At least, that is how a girl in college (Yes, WBW i went to college in the States as an exchange student) described what it sounded like to her when I was on the phone with my family.

But the big issue with Dutch is maybe not the sound, it is the lack of rythm that kills you. I like Suid-Afrikaans poetry a lot better than what is produced here.

And our prime-minister is nice to mr. Bush – that is something to think about! They prayed together when JP was visiting mr. Big. For crying out loud!
T
toby
Oct 6, 2004
"jjs" …
"Toby Thain" wrote in message
"jjs" wrote in message
news:…

Toby, the OP wants poor results replicating the shortcoming of whatever particular fifties publisher he imagines …

Au contraire. The OP was describing, exactly, works printed photogravure,

Well if he was talking about photogravure, then he had a strange way of putting it. He has insisted that he knew what he was talking about "fifties B&W photographs printed" such as those in common magazines (full of defects such as dust). I took it to mean publications like Life Magazine and possibly worse repro quality. Photogravure was, and is, far too expensive for consumer grade magazines, and to allow dust to show in such a high-end printing method is inexcusable. But he wants dusts, too.

You turned out to be right about the process in question.

But I also had in mind the cheap weeklies and huge-volume catalogues that even today are printed by gravure related processes (rotogravure perhaps, but not offset lithography), which must be cheap to print yet boast many of the same qualities and "feel" as the expensive books to which you and I refer.

One example that I can pinpoint would be a J. Crew clothing catalogue of 10 years ago, but I am sure the process is still widespread. From the mid-century decades, I seem to recall "women’s magazines" and maybe even LIFE itself printed this way. Would be pretty easy to put hands on a period example.

–Toby

So I don’t really think he’s talking photogravure. If he was, then he doesn’t need do degrade the quality of the output. Instead, he needs to do sophisticated dutones or tritones.

If you want to put a new subject line on your post, I’m sure it will serve better to address photogravure interests rather than what the OP wants – if he really knows what he wants.
H
Hecate
Oct 6, 2004
On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:21:08 -0500, "jjs" wrote:

"DD" wrote in message

LOL… nothing will prevent me quoting the jjs words on the Afrikaans ng with its many NL friends:-)))

The Swedes around here (and there are a lot of them) say that speaking Dutch is like barking. It just shows you how much those Swedes know, eh?
I tried to learn a little Swedish once – it took me aweek to get the knots out of my tongue 😉



Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui
J
jjs
Oct 6, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message

And our prime-minister is nice to mr. Bush – that is something to think about! They prayed together when JP was visiting mr. Big. For crying out loud!

Yeah, I hear that your prime-minister has agreed to let Bush draft Dutchmen into his war. We Americans sure as hell won’t go for it.
H
hkeispm0
Oct 6, 2004
"We Americans sure as hell won’t go for it."

No, I can see that, you Americans are already there!

And…uh… "we Americans"? You must mean only half of the voting population, for how else do you explain Bush’s popularity in the election polls?

I think we should all collectively turn muslim at once, than there is no more reason for terrorist attacks! AND we can go back to doing business. The old rule still counts: "If you can’t beat them, join them". Look what happened to Christianity: it absorbed the pagan culture as much as the pagans absorbed Christianity! We should be very grateful they did, for now we have X-mas trees and lots of other goodies! Just imagine, we could have X-Mas trees AND Ramadan’s ‘Id al-Fitr as well. More parties, yeah, let’s go for it!
J
jjs
Oct 6, 2004
"medform-norm" wrote in message
"We Americans sure as hell won’t go for it."

No, I can see that, you Americans are already there!

And…uh… "we Americans"? You must mean only half of the voting population, for how else do you explain Bush’s popularity in the election polls?

There is only one explanation: Americans are stupid.
H
hkeispm0
Oct 6, 2004
There is only one explanation: Americans are stupid.

Nooooooooh, they are hypnotised with special ‘teleplasmtic rays’ that get emitted through the television set, especially during the Late Night Show!
R
RSD99
Oct 6, 2004
"The Late Night Show?"

I thought it was during the ‘Jerry Springer Show.’

;-))

"medform-norm" wrote in message
There is only one explanation: Americans are stupid.

Nooooooooh, they are hypnotised with special ‘teleplasmtic
rays’ that get
emitted through the television set, especially during the
Late Night Show!
H
hkeispm0
Oct 6, 2004
In article <o1%8d.6730$>, "RSD99" wrote:

"The Late Night Show?"

I thought it was during the ‘Jerry Springer Show.’

;-))
Gosh, you might be right. Or was it during both? Whatever it is, it seems to be having effect….

Nooooooooh, they are hypnotised with special ‘teleplasmtic
rays’ that get
emitted through the television set, especially during the
Late Night Show!

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